


Outrunning Moirae

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Clones, Friendship/Love, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Mental Institutions, Missing Persons, New Orleans, Nightmares, Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Song Lyrics, Therapy, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder gets his usual vague information from an informant. It leads him across the country into unbelievable government mischief. Meanwhile, as Scully tracks the case from DC, she starts to question everything, including her own identity. Set around season 5, co-written with FirePhile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been here before  
> But when and how I cannot tell;  
> I know the grass beyond the door,  
> The sweet keen smell,  
> The sighing sound,  
> The lights around the shore
> 
> Sudden Light, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "April is the cruellest month... mixing memory and desire..."  
> \--T.S. Eliot

 

**Chapter One**

**April 16, 1998**   
**Jefferson Memorial**

It was an hour past midnight on April 16th. For many people in America, this fact caused heart palpitations and sweaty palms. It meant they were officially past the deadline to pay their taxes. But ironically, the IRS was the furthest thing from most people's minds in the Capitol, traditional home of the professional tax-evader. A more uncomfortable if trivial, problem had presented itself.

Washington DC is known for its summer swelter but the current heat wave gave new meaning to the term sweat. Somehow, it got hotter after the sun went down. The heat had started in late March and already people were ready for winter again.

The paddleboats were abandoned, floating silently in the lake near the Memorial. Occasionally a small wave would hit one and the brittle sound of plastic hitting plastic could be heard. Otherwise, Fox Mulder heard nothing except for the sound of low flying planes.

The phone message Fox Mulder received had been brief and to the point-- "Meet me at Jefferson Memorial. 12:45 tonight." It had been a garbled voice and could have been anyone, any age, any gender. But here he was, waiting. The humidity was unbearable and Mulder cursed his own stupidity. He should have worn something lighter, but the idea of wearing a jogging outfit to meet a possible informant didn't have much appeal while he was getting dressed. Now that he had been standing outside in the steamy heat for about fifteen minutes, he wished he'd chosen the shorts and t-shirt.

For a moment he let his mind wander, wondering if it was possible for humans to melt into the pavement. He followed this by trying to remember if any X-Files had dealt with that phenomenon and eventually had to admit it was most likely impossible.

A sudden break in the silence alerted him to the woman. She walked across the white stone floor of the Memorial, her heels clicking sharply in the silence. She walked over to him and waited a few seconds, looking him over sharply.

"Mr. Mulder," she finally said. There was no question in her voice.

"Yes?" he answered anyway, a force of habit.

"I have some information that would be very interesting to you," she said coldly.

"What is it?"

He'd heard this too many times before. But the woman standing in front of him wasn't what he expected, not at all **their** usual choice. She had to have been at least fifty. Her dark brown hair was cut into a very conservative style and her brown eyes appeared to see right through him. She wore a crisp business suit, and if she was at all uncomfortable, she hid it well. But under her perfect make-up he saw lines formed from pain and hardship. Her eyes, now that he'd been able to meet her stare, were not cold and although her voice was devoid of emotion, he sensed she was more than just pretty plywood. He listened.

"A few weeks ago your partner was summoned to a bridge and experienced missing time. I can tell you what happened-- if you do something for me."

There it was, the usual condition. He'd known it was coming, waited for it, and wondered vaguely when he'd become the person who people came to with odd jobs. It seemed that anyone who wanted something exposed came to him. Surely, there must be another truth searcher somewhere. Perhaps his number was in some bathroom-- 'For conspirators uncovered call Fox Mulder.'

He realized she was waiting for an answer.

"If I do what?" he asked, resigned to his fate and unable to resist the offer.

"Find my daughter."

He almost laughed; she had to be kidding. "I'm not a private eye."

"Three years ago my youngest child disappeared. No trace of her since. I know They are behind it. I want to know where she is. I need to know she's okay."

She looked at him pointedly. "I was always so loyal. I never told anyone their secrets. I never threatened to expose them like some people have. I didn't say a word. That turned out to be no guarantee. And I can't sit back and watch them destroy families anymore."

"What makes you suspect they took her?" Each knew whom the other meant by 'they.'

"Their expressions when I told them of her disappearance. The false sympathy-- and the scene of the crime was too clean for a killer. Too planned. You know the signs. It's happened to you, too."

"Why do you think I'll be able to find her?"

"Because a very close friend of mine was killed trying to help you. I trust his judgment. And," the woman handed him a file-- "You know how it feels to lose someone who is not meant to be found."

She walked away, leaving him no choice.

* * *

Back in his apartment, Mulder sat on his couch and looked over the file. There wasn't much information inside it: a handwritten note, an envelope titled 'Photographs,' a hospital file, and a missing persons report. A young woman smiled up at him from her picture in the report but her eyes were haunted. Mulder slipped on his glasses and started to read.

NAME: Jessica Sofia Walters SEX: Female RACE: White, Not of Hispanic Origin WEIGHT: 125 pounds HEIGHT: 66 inches EYES: Gray HAIR: Blonde DOB: 05/26/71 Date Reported Missing: 04/02/1995 Entering Agency: NYPD Reported Missing by: Nadia Walters Age at Time of Incident: 24 Current Age: 27 Incident Type: Involuntary Last Seen April 1, 1995 in vicinity of Central Park wearing blue jeans, black cashmere sweater and black shoes.

"Happy April Fool's Day," Mulder muttered and turned to the second page. There was more information on the disappearance, but not enough to make any conclusions. Certainly, nothing to point to anything more complicated than a random kidnapping. But then he reached the end of the page and found something disturbing; the case was closed without finding Jessica, or any conclusive evidence that she was dead. Just abruptly closed. That was unusual.

Mulder's eyes wandered to the hospital record. He had no idea why Nadia had attached the record. It didn't seem to have anything to do with her missing daughter. He began to read. His heart started pounding faster and faster. Finally, he set the thing down and picked up the two photographs. Then he took a long, shuddering breath.

"It can't be true."

Subject: Jane Doe #1121-B Admitted: March 7, 1998 Released: March 13, 1998 Hair Color: Dark Brown Eye Color: Blue Weight: unknown. Unable to determine. (see note) Height: unable to determine, no taller than 5'3. Note: Patient is suffering from extended bouts of paranoia and psychosis, along with two catatonic episodes. She will not speak directly to any of the staff, stating, "You're all working for them!" over and over. Will not take any medication, or allow any of staff near her. Extremely strong for her size. After six days, Jane Doe was transferred to another institution, whereabouts unknown.

Mulder's thoughts raced. It was possible. He'd seen things like this before. But for someone to pretend for over a month without any slip- ups, it would require-- what was he thinking? This was Scully he was doubting here.

But perhaps that was the entire point. They were entirely capable of making suggestions, deceiving him. Driving him to mistrust the only thing on earth he knew was true. This could all be another game to torment him.

"She is not her. Jeez. This is all out of some bad 1940s detective film," Mulder said, growling at the television, which was playing one of the aforementioned films. "I don't need this."

He crumpled up the note and shoved the report and record off the coffee table.

"He shoots-- he scores--" Mulder said dryly as the note reached the trashcan. He pointedly ignored the pathetic photograph of Jessica Walters, settled down on the couch, and tried to stop thinking and go to sleep.

He wasn't all that successful.

* * *

 

**_Dana Scully's apartment 2:48 AM_ **

The thing flew lower and lower, the lights blinding her-- Oh, God. They were coming and coming and coming for her. The sound was all screwed up--

"No!" Dana Scully gasped, sitting up in bed. Dammit. The air conditioning had gone out again. She walked over to her a/c unit, smacked it vigorously a couple of times, and it went on with a sullen whine. She glared at the godforsaken thing, and stalked to her kitchen for a glass of ice water.

The nightmares had been getting worse the last few nights. > she thought to herself, sipping slowly at the water. Whatever they were, they were disturbing.

Over and over, she went back to the night on the bridge, trying to remember. The ship, the mutilated bounty hunters, Cassandra Spender, anything. But there was nothing Scully could recall about the entire experience as a whole. It was gone, washed away into a sea of missing memories and missing time.

But the nightmares were different. In her nightmares, she saw the ship coming lower and lower, and everything freezing, and then her own face and then a blur of images and then-- the hospital. Mulder. Nothing.

"Scully! Scully, open the door!" Mulder shouted suddenly, breaking the peace of the evening into pieces.

Surprised, she rose from the kitchen table and went to the door. She opened it and with a sudden lurch, Mulder pushed her back and slammed the door.

"Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" she asked. He stared into her eyes, a certain wildness in his own hazel ones.

"Scully, tell me about the night on the bridge. Anything you can remember. Tell me about that night," he said, pleading. "Please. I want to know. I need to know."

"We've been over this," Scully said, a hint of irritation tinting her voice. "I don't remember. Except--"

"Except what? Tell me, Scully."

"First you tell me why you came here at two in the morning, screaming, waking my neighbors, and then shove me back and stare me down. Are you drunk, Mulder?"

"No, I'm not drunk. You trust me, don't you?" he asked, still holding her by the shoulders. "What's going on? Is there something you're not telling me."

"No, Mulder," she said. "I don't remember anything. But I've been having nightmares I think might be linked to that night. Maybe they're a reaction to not being able to remember."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah. I keep seeing this craft come lower, and then the sound goes wacky, and for a moment, everything stopped, and it was like-- it's like I'm looking at myself, and then there's a blur and a buzz and something terrible's happening, but I don't know what it is, and then I wake up," Scully said. "I don't remember that night. Nothing concrete."

Mulder looked at her and shook his head. Something was very wrong with him. He quickly broke eye contact and stared down at the floor and her feet.

"I may have a lead on it," Mulder said abruptly, letting her go. "I have to go."

"Where? Mulder, you can't just--" but he interrupted her again.

"I'm not sure. But if I can break this open, it could be important. It could change everything. If you remember anything else-- and I mean anything-- try to call me. If you can't get in contact with me, leave me an e-mail."

"Mulder-- you're not just going to go off half-cocked, are you?"

"This is important, Scully," he said solemnly.

"Would you at least tell me what's going on?"

"I wish I could," he said mysteriously. "See you later, Scully."

With that, he left her apartment and closed her door. Scully stared at the back of her door for a long while, sighed, and finally went back to bed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance." --Robert Graves, "In Broken Images"

**Chapter Two**

**April 16, 1998**

**X-Files Office**

"Who's Jessica Walters?" Scully asked, looking at the mussed missing persons report with her usual skepticism.

"That's what I need to know," Mulder said, pacing back and forth. "The woman who contacted me last night said that she was her daughter. I need to know exactly what's going on."

"Why?" Scully asked, her voice rising a notch. "This is just a slightly abnormal missing person case. For all we know, this girl just ran away and doesn't care to be found. So why are we investigating it?"

"Lots of reasons," Mulder said evasively, fiddling with his tie. Scully looked at the tie coolly. It was simply hideous. Surprisingly, shockingly so. She shrugged.

"Care to share a few?" she asked, giving him one of her normal "Dammit, Mulder, cut the cloak and dagger crap" looks.

"Not really."

"This wouldn't have to do with little green men, would it?" Scully asked with a smile.

For some reason, this response really sat wrong with Mulder. He had given Scully the case to get a head start on the more important investigation. After a sleepless night, he was on edge, and every little thing jarred him.

"Grey," Mulder snapped. "Don't you remember? Grey? The Tooms case? How about that? Remember that?"

He didn't really care if Scully found Jessica or not, but he had to look into this Belle Reverie thing, this Jane Doe. And Scully could not know. It would hurt her too much, there was too much speculation here to tell her.

"Of course I remember," Scully said. "I was joking."

"I'm not. You've seen so much, we've seen so much. Whether it's a hoax or not, it's more than just a joke."

"I know that. You're being a bit sensitive, though," Scully said. "I know what I've seen. I don't know what to believe any more. And you have a track record of being evasive on the subject on extraterrestrials."

"It's still no joke," Mulder replied. "You've seen inexplicable things, yet you can't get past conventional wisdom sometimes."

Scully rolled her eyes expressively.

"You don't have to bite my head off. You're in an absolutely lovely mood today. Keep it up and I might have to marry you."

Mulder blinked at that, then shook it off.

"Yeah, whatever," Mulder said, grabbing his coat.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"I'll be back," Mulder said, the words resonating in his head over and over.

She is not her.

Scully watched him leave, shook her head, and picked up the missing persons report. Something was wrong. Mulder was not himself. Ever since the frantic visit to her apartment the night before, she had been concerned for him. However, his recent questions had caught her off guard. Why was he acting so suspicious?

She perused the report, trying to find what had piqued Mulder's interest. There was nothing unusual about the disappearance itself but then she reached the phrase *Case closed*. Mulder was right, damn him, this wasn't a simple disappearance. Still, why was he so interested in it?

There was a contact number listed for a Detective William Turnbull. Perhaps he could shed some light on the case. Scully sighed, dialed the number and waited for an answer.

"Detective Turnbull here."

"Hi, this is Special Agent Dana Scully from the FBI and I'm investigating a missing persons case. You're listed as the contact."

"Uh huh, which case?"

"Jessica Sofia Walters, she disappeared in April 1995."

"Yeah, that case, well, it was closed last year." Was that fear in his voice? "How did you get it?"

Scully sat down and tried to think of an answer. "I know it was closed, that's why I'm calling. I'd like to know why." She purposely avoided his question.

"We're really busy right now, can you call back later?" There was suddenly a loud clatter in the background.

"Sure." Dial tone. Scully held the receiver and stared at it for a few seconds before placing it back on the phone. That had been odd. She decided that it was time to call Mulder. She was not going to be left in the dark about whatever was going on. Resolutely, she dialed his cell phone number.

"Mulder," he answered calmly.

"Mulder it's me. Where are you?"

Damn, he thought, it's Scully-- or not Scully. At the moment, he was on the metro towards Alexandria to pick up clothes. Then he was going to catch a plane from National to Louisiana and find out exactly what was going on.

"On the metro. I'm catching a flight to New York and going to meet with the detective who had handled the case."

That was a bad answer, he realized with a slight grimace. She'll see right through it. He wasn't even sure of the detective's name.

"Well, I just talked to Detective Turnbull and he's no help. Practically hung up on me after I asked him about Jessica Walters. What's going on here Mulder? What aren't you telling me?" she insisted.

Everything. Nothing. He paused, and answered cautiously.

"I'll know more later. Wait, we're going under a tunnel Scully, you're breaking up, Scully? Scully?" He hung up, yet another bad move. But, whoever the person on the other line was, he was almost convinced it was not Scully. Now that the possibility was in his mind, everything she did was just a little off. Of course, there was always the outside chance that he was wrong, that this was all a setup by them and he was being hypersensitive. If that was the case, he didn't want to alienate her.

Every seat on the metro was filled. Mulder almost elbowed someone while answering his cell phone. His stop was close, but he'd have to take a taxi from the metro station. He stifled a yawn. That medical record had kept him up all night. Plus he kept seeing faceless men in his dreams and others on fire. Why did it have to be fire? Now it seemed that Cassandra Spender wasn't the only person who went missing from that bridge.

Scully glared angrily at the phone as she hung up.

"Breaking up, my ass," Scully muttered. "Ditched again, Agent Scully. Shocker. He's lucky I don't kick his sorry butt to New York."

"Excuse me, Scully?" someone asked politely.

"Oh. Oh, Danny-- hi."

"Is Agent Mulder here?"

"No, no he's not," Scully said icily. "Why?"

"He asked me to look up some records at a mental institution called Belle Reverie in Louisiana. I wanted to tell him I wasn't very successful getting the info."

"What did he have you looking for?"

"Patients admitted on March 7, 1998."

The date shot through Scully's spine like ice, but she maintained her cool. "March 7, you said?"

"Yeah. Bitch on the phone got all uptight, asked if I was trying to take their license. Really really funky. So, where is he?"

"I don't know," Scully said. A sudden jarring vision crossed her eyes-- suddenly, Danny wasn't standing before her, but a half dozen dark and shadowy figures, men, and she was in danger, and they were going to do something terrible.

"No!" she gasped, blinking quickly. Danny looked at her with concern.

"You all right, Scully?"

"Yeah-- yeah, I just didn't get too much sleep last night. My air conditioner's sucking it up, you know?" she said with an exaggerated grimace. She brought her hand down too hard on the corner of the desk, and cut her finger, the tiniest bit. Blood welled up immediately.

"Ouch. You okay?" Danny asked.

"Yeah. Just a little cut," Scully replied, looking at the droplet of crimson blood forming on the finger with fascination. "You can leave the stuff you have for Mulder with me, if you want?"

"No, he was insistent. Give this stuff only to him. He was being a total Mulder, you know how that goes," Danny said. "Tell him I was here."

"Yeah," Scully said as the door closed. She brought her finger to her lips, trying to repair the damage to her body even as her mind swirled with confusion.

Mental hospitals, missing girls, strange dreams, lies, more lies, and danger-- 'once more into the breach,' Scully thought as she went back to the Walters file and considered not the missing girl, but the mother.

Nadia Walters. What connection did she have in this little game exactly? Her number was on the missing persons report Mulder had deigned leave with her, so with a sigh, Scully picked up the phone and resolutely began to dial.

* * *

 

**Walters Residence Bedford, NY 9:50 AM**

"It's a beautiful morning," Nadia Walters decided aloud as she opened her back screen door. The weather was perfect, if a bit too humid for her tastes. She ran a hand through her hair and walked back to the kitchen to get breakfast. She was usually up at seven, but she had taken a late night flight and so was more tired than usual. Her husband had left hours earlier and so she was alone in the large house.

Funny, even in an estate town like Bedford she didn't feel safe. Especially not now that her life was in danger. Thirty-odd years of playing the unsuspecting wife was a few years too many. She knew what her husband was involved in, and ignored it. For him, evil had paid-- the connections he made bought them this lovely country home. He wasn't part of the inner circle. She would never have been able to be married to one of them. But she was unable to believe that the same man she loved was also the one who was named in the files she had found. Files which spelled out each one of his crimes. Tests, lies, people torn from their mothers, mass graves...

She wiped away a few tears and looked around. Pictures of her family surrounded her: Marisa and her husband Chris with their twins, Kevin and his wife Julia who was holding Lexi, their new baby girl, and Jessica...

It felt like she spoke to her only yesterday. She hoped that Fox Mulder was able to locate Jessica or at least find out what happened to her. God, she hoped her baby wasn't in one of those graves, that she was spared from the tests she had read about and she was safe.

Part of her was frightened at the thought of finding her daughter and seeing what they had done to her. She bit her lip, blinked furiously and swallowed, trying to hold back her feelings. It wasn't working. Her chest felt constricted and her eyes burned.

The phone rang.

"Hello?" Deep breath, Nadia-- but her voice was still shaky.

"Mrs. Walters?"

"Yes?"

"This is Agent Dana Scully, I'm calling about your missing persons report."

"Oh, of course, I was expecting your call." Liar, she didn't even know they had the number.

"Can I ask you a few questions-- off the record?"

"Yes, of course," Nadia said smoothly. Dana Scully. The name clicked in her head. Shit.

"Your daughter was Jessica, right?"

"Yes, my daughter was Jessica Walters. Why are you calling me, Agent Scully? The case was closed," Nadia said crisply.

"Someone wants it reopened, Mrs. Walters," the same sort of crisp voice replied. "My partner was given this case, and I believe there's more to it than meets the eye."

God damn right there was more to it, Nadia thought. There was a lot more to the story. But this was the last person who she should tell.

"What do you mean, Agent Scully?" Nadia asked.

"Why is everyone so touchy about this case, Mrs. Walters? You reported your daughter missing, you'd think maybe you wanted her to come home," Scully said, trying desperately to get information from someone.

"I want that more than anything on earth," Nadia said, fighting a sob.

"Then why don't you help me? Why don't you explain to me what the hell really happened to Jessica Walters. No one seems to care where she went. So what is it?"

Nadia Walters knew exactly who she was talking to. She knew exactly what the consequences of this would be. To hell with it. It was about time she took a chance with a few things.

"Are you sure you can stand it, Agent Scully?"

"I've dealt with worse," Scully said.

"So did Agent Mulder run straight to you with the file after our meeting last night?"

"What?" Scully asked, confused.

"Mulder. I gave him the goddamn file. Did he give you this part to do while he tracked down Jane Doe? Did he trust you enough to do that?"

"You gave him the file?"

"You know I gave him the file, you betcha. Apparently he didn't tell you everything." The absurdity of the moment reminded Nadia of the movie she'd watched with her husband before she'd gone to Washington-- the Coen brothers' Fargo. The possible parallels between the film and her life suddenly frightened her. She hoped to God no one ended up in a woodchipper.

"You don't know much, Agent Scully," Nadia said. "But I think I'll share with you, because you need to know."

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I had visions, I was in them, I was looking into the mirror To see a little bit clearer The rottenness and evil in me--" Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"

**Chapter Three**   
**X-Files Office 11:57 AM**

"Oh, Agent Scully-- you can't trust anyone. Not even yourself. Because you don't know who you are," Nadia said, and then hung up.

Dana Scully stared at the walls of the basement office. Damn. That had been intense. Two hours of Nadia Walters explaining her daughter's disappearance and the inevitable involvement of shadow conspiracies, governments within governments.

No wonder Mulder had been interested in this case.

But what was so frightening was how Nadia knew details. None of the usual vague crap. No cryptic clue and then fade into the shadows. This was real, Scully knew it.

She just knew.

But the conversation had been strained. Nadia didn't trust her and finally when Scully had outright asked why, the other woman had made her final cryptic statement and hung up.

"I know who I am," Scully said to herself. She thought again of the terrible night in March, the one she couldn't remember, and for a second, she thought she remembered something--

>

>

Scully shook her head. All of this was getting to her. She picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Hello?" a familiar voice answered.

"Mom, it's me. Can you meet me for lunch in an hour?" Scully asked into the receiver, one thought ringing in her mind.

I know who I am.

* * *

 

Delta Flight 379   
12:20 PM

Take off was smooth, if you ignored the plane almost ramming into the Washington Monument, but that was a given.

> Mulder asked himself again. For all he knew this was a trap and he was walking right into danger. But what did he know that they would need? Nothing that made sense. Besides, the woman who handed him the file seemed trustworthy. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps he was so used to dealing with shady figures that the minute someone honest gave him information he was immediately suspicious. He had become used to surviving on half-truths.

"Would you care for something to drink, sir?" a pretty brunette flight attendant asked, pushing her cart forward.

"Umm- water." He was handed a plastic cup filled with ice and a bit of water.

"And how about for you, sweetie?" she asked the little girl next to him.

"I'll have a juice." The little girl was handed a cranapple box drink. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetie. I'll be back later to check on you," the woman smiled and turned to the next seats.

"I'm going to visit my daddy," the little girl said after taking a sip of her juice.

"Really?" Mulder sipped at his water and turned to the girl. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail and her blue eyes were wide and expressive. She was wearing overalls and a pink t-shirt, and on her feet were sneakers.

She nodded vigorously, smiling. "My name is Amy and I'm 7 years old." She held up seven fingers. "What's your name?" Her legs swung back and forth.

"Mulder."

Amy giggled, "That's a funny name. So why are you going to Luwisianna?" She struggled with the word.

He couldn't help but smile. "Business."

"What kind?" she asked with innocent curiosity.

Instead of trying to explain, Mulder reached into his pocket, pulled out his badge and showed it to her. Her eyes widened. He put the badge away.

"Wow! You're like that guy in the movie 'That Darn Cat'!" Amy grinned.

Mulder nodded. He hadn't seen the movie but had seen the ads. "So your daddy lives in Louisiana?"

"Yup, he and mommy got divorced a year ago, so I live with mommy and if I wanna see daddy I havta go down to Luwisianna." Her eyes clouded momentarily.

He knew divorce was hard on kids, especially young ones like Amy. She reminded him of Samantha at that age, bubbly, full of life, curious about everything, but he couldn't think of that now. Had to try to forget it, even though he saw the adult Samantha, he was still haunted by memories of the eight-year old.

"What does your daddy do down there?" Mulder asked.

"He's a quack."

"A quack?"

Amy nodded, "That's what mommy calls it. People go to daddy and tell him problems and he talks to them and tries to make them better."

Oh, a psychologist. Obviously mom didn't have much respect for that profession.

"Why does your daddy live down there?"

"His hospital is there." Amy shrugged, it didn't mean much to her. She reached in front of her and pulled a coloring book and crayons out of the seat pocket. She put the tray table down and placed the book on top of it.

"I can color inside the lines, watch." She laboriously colored in the picture of New York. After about ten minutes, she looked up. "See?"

Mulder smiled at her.

"Perfect." An idea crept into his mind. It would be too much of a coincidence but-- "Do you know where your daddy works?"

"I can spell it, but can't say it." She turned to the back of the front cover and carefully wrote the town. She showed it to Mulder.

He read it to himself, his heart pounding, unable to believe his luck.

Bell Revre

"Belle Reverie?" he whispered. Amy nodded, smiling, having no idea what she had just told him.

* * *

 

Old Post House Restaurant   
1:10 PM

"Sorry I'm late, Dana. Traffic was awful." Maggie Scully kissed her daughter on the cheek and sat down.

"It's OK, Mom." Scully kissed her back.

"So, any reason for meeting or did you just want to talk?" Maggie asked, already looking at the menu.

"No reason, I just don't get to see you very often. Seems that lately I only see you when I'm close to having a nervous breakdown." Scully forced herself to smile.

Maggie smiled back. "So you're doing okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom. How are you? How is everyone?"

"Great. Matthew's gotten so big, you wouldn't believe he's only four months old and Bill is so the proud father. And Charles is finally coming home in May!" Maggie hadn't seen her youngest child in years and couldn't hide her excitement.

"That's wonderful news! I can't wait to see him again."

"So don't make any plans for May 14," Maggie said, taking a sip of water.

"I won't. But with a partner like Mulder I have no idea where I might be tomorrow, let alone a month from now."

Scully looked over the menu.

"If he keeps you from seeing your brother, shoot him again for me." Maggie smiled.

"Mom!" She started to laugh, then paused and grinned speculatively. "I'll pass on the message."

They ordered and Scully became increasingly comfortable. Cryptic warnings aside, she knew exactly who she was. Tension floated away after the meal was served and when they hugged and kissed goodbye, Scully was feeling better than she had in weeks.

It was in the car, to the tune of some absurd pop song-- "There's lots of forces in a modern world-- they take their toll upon a modern girl-" when things changed.

A huge Mack truck was barreling down the highway, and Scully was suddenly extremely tempted to drive in front of it. Desperately tempted.

"What the hell?" she whispered to herself, forcing herself to stop trying to veer for the truck. "Who the hell tries to drive into a truck? Not me."

The urge reasserted itself, and Scully felt almost helpless. But remembering the results the last time some irrational impulse seized her, she yanked the steering wheel the other way, ending up on the shoulder. For a moment, she buried her head in the steering wheel, but then she sat up and took a deep breath.

"Okay, Dana," she said to herself. "What the hell was that? Driving into a Mack truck. That makes so much sense. Like drilling holes in your head."

The traffic whizzed by, the occasional derisive honk reminding her of her situation. Scully took another deep breath, and tried to clear her head. The radio wasn't helping.

"Oh, God. What's happening to me?" Scully whispered, burying her head back in the steering wheel. She sat there, listening-- "When the world keeps coming down on me, I let it go!"

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." --William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94

**Chapter Four**   
**Baton Rouge Airport**   
**2:17 PM CDT**

Dr. Wesley Richardson was not a good-looking man. In fact, the way most people described him was "A little guy, kind of funny looking." When pressed to get more into details, the person would squirm, and say, "Funny-looking in a general way. More than most people."

He didn't really care. Wesley Richardson cared about three things in life-- his work, his daughter, and his reputation. None of them involved his unfortunate resemblance to guys who played hired killers in movies.

"Daddy! Daddy!" a beloved little voice called to him. He looked up at the airport gate. There she was, followed by a blandly handsome man who she was grinning up at.

"Amy, baby, there you are. How have you been?"

"I'm good. Daddy, this is my friend Mulder. He says he'd like to talk to you. He's a detective with the FBI," Amy said, smiling. Wesley cursed internally, but forced a smile. FBI? His friends had said there would be no more government interest in Belle Reverie. And with the call this morning, Wesley's ulcer was due to act up again.

"You work for Belle Reverie?" the man asked.

"Yeah, I do. What's your interest in it?"

"I need to know about a Jane Doe admitted on March 7-- as a personal, not a Bureau matter, Dr. Richardson."

Wesley looked at the Mulder fellow again. The poor guy. Looked kind of torn up about something. Amy obviously liked him, too.

"I don't know very much about it," Wesley said, lying through his teeth. "Belle Reverie has often had a few-- less than official, shall we say-- ties with the American government. A couple of men brought her in March 7. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought her drugged at that point. But we ran a toxicological screening, and she was clean. My God, it took three orderlies to get that screening. She was a little thing, too."

The man clenched his fists, and relaxed them. Amy looked up at Mulder innocently.

"Are you okay? You look sad," she said.

"Did you hurt her?" the man asked quietly, trying to maintain control.

"Who?" Richardson asked, surprised.

"Jane Doe. Did you hurt her?!" Mulder shouted.

Wesley panicked and started to babble.

"We didn't try to hurt her. She hurt herself!"

"Is she alive?" the man whispered.

"She was when she left Belle Reverie," Wesley said. "I can't tell you anything. Now please leave me and my daughter alone."

Mulder grabbed the squirming Wesley by one shoulder, and fumbled at his hip. Wesley prayed that it wasn't for a gun. Mulder found his wallet, flipped through it blindly, finding one picture.

"Her. Is this your Jane Doe?" he asked, eyes flashing.

Wesley looked down at the photograph. His eyes widened in recognition.

"Is it her?" Mulder asked.

"The hair is wrong," Wesley said. "But I think so."

"Why are you hurting my daddy?" Amy asked suddenly. Mulder realized this was beyond inappropriate.

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry," Mulder said, letting the weaselly little bastard loose. "Where did they take her?"

"I don't know, I told you."

"You know the person who does know, don't you, Dr. Richardson?" Mulder asked calmly. He didn't want to scare Amy any more.

"I don't know."

"I don't think that's the right answer. These friends of yours, they don't play fair, you know. The lady who clued me into your Jane Doe, she's one of them. They took her daughter one day, for collateral."

"What are you saying?" Wesley asked.

"I'm saying you love your daughter. Help me so that she can stay safe," Mulder said.

"They wouldn't hurt her."

"Nadia Walters probably thought the same thing," Mulder said dryly.

Wesley Richardson's eyes widened. "Excuse me, but did you just say Nadia Walters?"

"Do you know her?" Mulder asked.

He nodded. "She was my mom's best friend. I was good friends with one of her daughters." I worked with her husband, but he didn't say that. He suddenly wanted to sit down.

"Daddy, are you okay?" Amy asked with concern, reaching out to him.

Richardson knelt down and hugged her tightly, not wanting to let go, and realizing that no one was safe.

"Which daughter?" He forced himself to look up.

"Her youngest, Jessica."

Richardson became paler, if that was possible.

"We were close," he said after a moment, remembering the tests that he'd seen performed or heard about and knowing that any one of the women he'd seen could have been Jessica. Even worse, looking into his daughter's eyes and seeing her a few years older and as one of the subjects, her soft cries going unanswered and doctors surrounding her. He shut his eyes tightly, but was unable to shake off the images.

He stood up and looked right into Mulder's eyes. "If I help you I'll put my family, my life and my reputation in danger." Richardson gently ran his hand over his daughter's silky hair. Then another thought. "They could be watching us right now."

Mulder doubted this, but airport security had certainly been interested ever since he grabbed onto Richardson's shoulders, stupid move. "The minute you joined up with them you bargained with your family and your life, not to mention your reputation. They would get rid of you in a second if it furthered their agenda." Then he leaned in close and whispered so as to not scare Amy-- "You know what they do to little girls, don't you?" He felt guilty after he said it, knowing he was using this man and manipulating him with his daughter. But it was the only way.

Richardson actually went ashen and held onto his daughter tighter. He'd never seen them perform the tests on children. He swallowed painfully.

"Dr. Udall, at the hospital, he's the one that oversaw the transfer."

"Daddy? Daddy? Are you okay?" Amy asked, tugging at his shirt.

"I'm fine, baby, we can leave now." He looked at Mulder, almost for confirmation.

Mulder nodded and whispered thank you. He watched Richardson and his daughter rush out of the airport. Amy turned her head to look at him, wondering how he could make her daddy so upset and trying to figure out what had just happened. Their eyes met briefly and then she was gone. Still, he noticed the hurt in her eyes and knew he had caused it.

If Scully was there, she would have called him on his behavior and correctly. He could almost hear her voice reprimanding him. It made him feel better. He deserved her anger. Then again, that's why he acted that way, right? To find her, if she were even lost.

"The ends justify the means," he whispered, but even he was having trouble believing it.

* * *

 

Karen Kosseff's Office   
4:00 PM EDT

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." Scully sat down in the plush chair and looked at the therapist.

"Dana, we in the medical profession take thoughts of suicide very seriously. What happened?" Kosseff was concerned. The petite redhead had shown signs of depression before, but nothing like this.

"I was driving back from lunch when I was suddenly struck with the urge to drive head on into an eighteen-wheeler. I have no idea why."

"Have you had thoughts of suicide before?"

Scully took a deep breath, she might as well tell her the truth. "Briefly, during my cancer, but that was months ago."

This was news to Kosseff. "During your cancer you felt that way?"

"For a very short time. One night, when the pain was at its worst, I wanted it to stop. I didn't care how. But it was only a fleeting thought, and it disappeared as quickly as it came."

"Have you had any undue stress in your life lately?"

Scully almost laughed. "A better question is when don't I have undue stress in my life. I can usually handle it."

"Perhaps you're repressing feelings of depression? Have you lost weight lately? Mood swings? Feeling sad for a long amount of time? Tired for no reason? Unable to sleep at night?" She rattled off the signs.

"No, nothing like that. This is something else." She couldn't put the feeling into words.

"How is it different than depression?" Kosseff inquired softly.

"I felt like I was under orders to drive into that truck, like I was on auto-pilot. It took everything I had to drive onto the shoulder," Scully said, her voice shaking. "To have control taken away-- it's a terrifying experience. It's hard to discuss."

"How is control taken from you, Dana?"

"I don't know. But I keep having nightmares-- terrible nightmares of a night I can't remember, a night where control was taken from me like it was today. Maybe I should start wearing aluminum foil on my head to keep out the government mind control rays," Scully said, trying to make a joke. It fell flat.

"Will you tell me about these nightmares?"

"They don't sound so terrifying," Scully said. "But I keep seeing a lights in the sky, and they're coming for me, and everything goes blurry, and I swear to God I see myself, but not like I were seeing myself in a mirror. Like there was a copy of me. And I keep seeing men. Bad men. I feel like I'm a child again, being terrified by boogiemen and shadows. And this upsets me."

"It sounds like buried memories are trying to surface. Would you consider--?"

"Regression hypnosis? I already tried that. I don't know. I don't have much faith in that; Mulder and I tried right after that night. He's lost his faith in that sort of thing."

"Dana, this is about you, and your beliefs. I know you know about the ambiguity of recovered memories, but I think in your case, that it might be a useful tool in regaining balance in your life. As it is, I don't know if you're competent to work right now."

Scully's eyes flashed fire. "I am-- I mean-- I'll do it. Please don't tell people that I can't work. That's the only thing holding me together."

Kosseff sighed. "It might be useful for your partner to be with you at these sessions. Can he be reached?"

"Agent Mulder is unavailable right now."

"Where is he?" Kosseff asked.

"On the dark side of the moon for all I know," Scully said. "Now, when should I set up these appointments?"

* * *

 

Bel Air Motel   
Broussard, LA   
4:25 PM CDT

"Hey, _cher_ , you look kind of tired," the desk clerk said in a heavy drawl. Mulder nodded. "What brings you to Broussard?"

"Belle Reverie."

"Oh, baby, you know someone in there? Dat's just a shame."

"You know much about the Belle Reverie?"

"It's noisy there, for a sanitarium. The government's involved-- but who care, they always doin' something here. Everyone turns a blind eye, and it's not like the oil companies do, cher, so we ignore."

"I see. Could you give me directions there?"

"Oh, sure I could," the clerk said. She was a pretty girl, probably no more than twenty. Her long, nearly black hair was braided back intricately, and her dark eyes sparkled dangerously. She was suntanned, and an attractive fringe of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Mulder tried to gulp back any inappropriate feelings, because this pretty girl was also wearing cut off denim shorts and a sleeveless top.

It didn't leave much to the imagination.

"Well?" he asked after an appropriate pause.

"I don't know it off the top of my head, I'm gonna go ask my papa," she said. Mulder noted her nametag, such as it was, said Daisy. Daisy Miller, Daisy Buchanan? Literary connections sprang to his mind unbidden.

"Daisy," Mulder said. "Ms. Miller?"

"Miller? Where the hell'd you get that? It's Daisy Hebert," she said, slow motion, hay-bear. "What?"

"I need the key to my room."

Ten minutes later, Mulder was in a small, neutral room, looking over maps of the area, and waiting for the pizza from Lafayette that was supposedly on its way, or so Daisy had promised.

He wasn't holding his breath.

* * *

 

X-Files Office   
4:45 PM EDT

Scully finished up the rest of the paperwork quickly and was about to leave when the phone rang. She was tempted to ignore it and walk out, but her conscience wouldn't let her. So in a less than enthusiastic voice, she answered.

"Scully."

"Agent Scully, Assistant Director Skinner would like to see you as soon as possible."

"I'll be right there." Her stomach knotted itself. Had Kosseff told Skinner that she was unable to work and needed to have a break? Perhaps he was going to put her on forced vacation? Now she was really tempted to make a run for it, but she knew she had to face him sooner or later.

She arrived at his office a few minutes later. Kimberly sent her in right away. Scully figured that she'd seen the inside of his office more times than another other agent in the bureau, she thought to herself, only half-joking.

Skinner was sitting down when she entered the room. He stood up to greet her. She looked at him closely-- sometimes if there was bad news, she could see it in his eyes or facial expression. This time she saw nothing.

"Agent Scully."

"Sir?" She closed the door.

"Take a seat."

She sat down calmly, folding her hands on her knees. He wasted no time in getting to his point. He looked down at a file and then back up at her.

"Are you familiar with the Novak case?"

She hoped she didn't look as relieved as she felt. She nodded and he looked at her pointedly. She realized he wanted her to continue.

"Dean Novak, and his younger brother Jason disappeared from their family's home in Westchester a month ago. Jason's body was found last week at a park in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Forensic reports state that Jason had been killed soon after the kidnapping."

"Dean Novak's body was found today in the fountain of a DC park and two kids from that area are now missing." He didn't have to tell her what that meant.

"You're slotted for the autopsy tonight. Agent Stein will meet you in the morgue at 7:00."

She nodded, waiting to see if he would say anything else. Of course he did.

"Oh, by the way, do you happen to know where I can find Agent Mulder?"

"No sir, he left earlier this morning." She hoped her irritation didn't show in her voice.

"Has he been in contact with you?"

"No sir."

He looked right at her, to see if she was telling the truth. She had lied to him before. But he saw nothing to indicate that she had any idea where Mulder was this time. This time.

"You're dismissed."

She left the office as quickly as possible, ignoring the thought that came unbidden to her mind-- autopsy knives are sharp.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There is more to life than a little money. Don't you know that?" --Frances McDormand, Fargo

**Chapter Five**   
**Lafayette, LA**   
**5:15 PM CDT**

Mulder had guessed Udall had money, but the house surprised him nonetheless. It was beautiful, the sweeping curve of the cobblestone driveway, the attractive red brick building with its white columns and porch-- every house he'd seen had some form of porch, and the Udalls were no different. He noted a deep green BMW as he walked to the front door, and took it to mean someone was home. He walked up the stone walkway and rang the doorbell. No answer.

At that moment another BMW drove up and stopped. A woman got out of the car, smoothed down a tight dress and walked up to him. Closer up he could see her curly blonde hair and green eyes. Her step had a bit of a bounce to it and she smiled widely as she neared him.

"Can I help you?" She had a heavy accent and at this distance, he could smell her overpowering perfume.

"Yes, I'm looking for Dr. Marcus Udall."

"Well, you're at the right place. I'm his wife Suzi. What kind of business do you have with my husband?" She looked at him curiously.

"I'm from the FBI, just want to ask him a few questions."

"Well, he's home. Or should be. That's his car. I just went out to run some errands," she said in a fractionally colder voice as she opened the door. "I'll just run upstairs and tell him you're here."

The inside of the house could have been in a "Better Homes and Gardens" spread. She sidled upstairs-- and was it just his imagination or was she doing that thing with her hips purposely? What was it with Southern women?

"Marcus," Suzi called loudly, knocking as she opened an upstairs door. "Marcus, there's a gentleman here to..."

"Mrs. Udall?" Mulder called, concerned at the way her voice trailed off.

She came back to the railing, eyes wide and shaking.

"I think we need an ambulance," she said, the bounciness gone from her voice.

"Why?" Mulder asked.

"Because Marcus is dead," Suzi said flatly.

Mulder stared at her. "Dead?"

"Stiff as a trout," Suzi said, her face pale. "I said, call a fucking ambulance!"

* * *

 

Udall Residence   
2 hours later

"Far as we can tell, the poor bastard done hisself in," said the Lafayette PD man, Detective Pete Ardoin. Pete was almost the complete opposite of the stereotypical jolly drunken Cajun that Mulder had expected. He was small, blonde, with dark brown eyes. Suzi Udall sniffled loudly.

"But you can't be sure," Mulder replied.

"On our initial exams, there are no signs of a struggle. The man's got a nice hole in the back of his head, Agent Mulder. Maybe he felt guilty," Ardoin said. "Mrs. Udall, ma'am, did he seem depressed?"

"Marcus? Hell no," Suzi said. "My husband was a cocky bastard. He thought he was on top of the world, baby, before I went out this afternoon, he asked me what I thought about getting the hell out of Louisiana, going to God only knows-- if anything, he was up lately."

"Was he cheating on you, Mrs. Udall?" Ardoin asked.

"Marcus? Good God, no," Suzi replied. "Trust me. I know what it looks like, but there is no way in hell Marcus shot himself dead-- willingly."

"Then who do you think did it?"

"I don't know. Marcus was mixed up in some government projects, maybe he knew too much," Suzi said, her face trembling. "I know how crazy that sounds, but you don't know some of the men Marcus worked with."

"The bastard was shredding his files," someone called as they walked downstairs. "There were medical files from the hospital-- hell, they're just-- trashed. Some of em are burnt, his office is trashed."

Mulder swore internally. The bastards. He knew that all the evidence was gone now. Unless...

"Suzi, Mrs. Udall, did your husband keep information on his computer? Was the computer trashed?"

"Marcus didn't talk to me about business," Suzi said. "You might ask Dr. Wesley Richardson. Most of what Marcus knew, Wes knew."

"Wesley Richardson? Funny-looking guy?" Mulder asked.

Suzi nodded. "Funny-looking in a general sort of way," she agreed.

Mulder looked at Ardoin and the rest of the police detail. Ardoin looked at him curiously.

"What's so important about the files?" Ardoin asked.

"Lives are riding on it, Ardoin," Mulder said. "Dr. Udall was mixed up in some bad business. I need you to bring in Dr. Wesley Richardson for me. For questioning. Be nice about it-- his seven-year-old daughter's in from Washington. I'm sure Suzi has the address. I'll meet you at the station in an hour and a half, tops."

"Where are you going?" Ardoin asked, confused.

"Belle Reverie. Dr. Udall's friends-- the guys who killed him-- might be cleaning house, top to bottom, and that includes the hospital."

Mulder left the Udall home in a rush, nightmares of fires, black helicopters, and firing squads dancing through his mind as he drove the 162 South to the Belle Reverie hospital. Biting his lip, Mulder drove the way to hospital, and prayed to a God he didn't believe in he'd find what he sought.

* * *

 

Office of the Coroner   
7:13 PM EDT

Agent Stein was late. Scully was not pleased about that. After the incident with Kosseff, the meeting with Skinner, and the overall length of her day, waiting around on Stein was really pissing her off.

Hell, why had Skinner asked her to do the autopsy? As tragic as the Novak case was, it wasn't in the least paranormal. She supposed it was a tribute to her skills as a pathologist.

"I can cut up dead people like a pro," Scully said to herself, pretending to grin. "Come on, Agent Stein, some of us are tired."

And the sharp knives are giving us unpleasant thoughts, she added, but not aloud.

Scully leaned back against a chair, and let herself relax just a little, closing her eyes, breathing slowly. Then she heard the two male voices arguing.

"How long?"

"Two months tops. Probably less."

"Agent Mulder will know."

"He'll never be able to prove it. There's no difference."

"There are indeed!"

"Barring unforeseen accidents, there will be no reason to find the differences."

Scully gasped and opened her eyes. There was no one in the room. She peeked outside the door. There was no one there, either. She was alone in the morgue-- if you didn't count the stiffs, anyway, and it wasn't likely they'd be discussing her.

Had they been discussing her? Scully was quite certain they were, and she didn't know how she knew.

"I just knew," she murmured, the irony of the phrase bringing a sardonic grin to her lips.

"Agent Scully?"

Scully turned around to confront Agent Stein's concerned face.

"Yeah?" she asked sharply.

"You were saying something?" Stein said quietly.

"Just talking to the corpses, Stein. You ready to slice and dice?" Scully asked, the grin still on her face.

"But Agent Scully, you're not performing the autopsy," Stein said calmly. "We're performing the autopsy on you."

Scully found herself suddenly on the table, with three men looking over her, holding her down. One of them held a knife and looked ready to use it.

"But I'm not dead!" Scully protested. This was absurd.

"Of course you're not," one of the men said. "But you were never alive, so it doesn't matter. Now hold still--"

Scully screamed.

And woke up.

"Agent Scully?"

It was Stein again. Scully shied back.

"What?"

"You were dozing-- and you screamed."

Scully nodded, gasping. "Nightmare," she said curtly. "You're late."

"I'm sorry. Traffic," Stein said, extending a hand to help her up. Scully, still spooked, shook it away, blinked a few times.

"Let's do this," she said, the images of her nightmares clinging to her like sweat on a humid day. Stein nodded, and they began the autopsy.

* * *

 

Belle Reverie Sanitarium   
8:18 PM CDT

"I am with the FBI, you little shitface, and Dr. Udall is dead, so I suggest you let me into the compound!" Mulder yelled at the gate guard.

"Dr. Udall was very much alive when he left here today at 4:30, Agent Mulder, and his orders are strict and standing. No one enters Belle Reverie without an appointment or the approval of one of the members of the staff," the guard said, his stern face glaring back at Mulder.

Mulder avoided throttling the guy. "I am a Federal agent, and I'm requiring you to allow me into the compound," he tried.

"Sir, unless you have a warrant allowing you to search the compound, I'm afraid that doesn't mean much to me," the guard replied. "I suggest you leave and come back tomorrow, sir."

A car pulled up behind Mulder's Taurus, and someone Mulder couldn't see got out.

"Lionel, let Agent Mulder in," he called.

"Dr. Richardson?" the guard asked. Wesley Richardson strode up to Mulder's window, eyes puffy.

"If they've killed Marcus, we're all in trouble here," Wesley said. "We have to get to the computer system before the files are erased. Now, Lionel, God damn your bureaucratic soul, let us in!"

"Yes, sir, Dr. Richardson, sir. Is Dr. Udall really dead?"

"Shot through the skull, exposing his shit for brains, Lionel," Wesley said, walking around and getting into Mulder's car. "The police took Suzi and Amy and put them in a safe house for the evening. We've gotta move fast, Mr. Mulder, if you want to find what you're looking for-- as do I."

"What are you looking for?" Mulder asked, as Lionel let them pass into the guarded compound. "Nice setup for a mental hospital, by the way."

"Oh, cut the crap, Agent Mulder. I'm helping you because I love my daughter. Because I know that these people are capable of anything. And because Jessica Walters was important to me. Your personal quest and mine happen to coincide. I don't like you. I don't care about your greater quests. Got me?" Wesley asked. Mulder, shocked by the funny- looking man's intensity, nodded curtly. Wesley calmly gave Mulder directions on where to park, and waited coldly as Mulder got out of the car.

"You know where to go," Mulder told the man.

"Yeah, I do. Follow me, Agent Mulder," Dr. Richardson said, his small dark eyes darting around nervously. "I only hope I know enough access codes to help us both."

"And if not?"

"I hear the ends of the earth are nice this time of year. That'll be where I end up going," Wesley said, sliding a card to let them into the building.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yeah, you're not rid of me I'll make you lick my injuries? I'm gonna twist your head off, see? Til you say don't you wish you never never met her--" --PJ Harvey, "Rid of Me"

**Chapter Six**

**Scully's apartment**   
**9:30 PM EDT**

Scully opened the door to her apartment and barely made it to the couch before collapsing. Suddenly, the television appeared to turn itself on. The light and sound made her wince slightly. She was starting to develop a headache. It felt like much later than 9:30.

"And in other news Dr. Richard Seed is continuing his efforts to produce the world's first human clone. In February, Congress killed a GOP bill to ban cloning. For more on this subject..." The anchorwoman's face was calm and comforting. Her light brown hair was cut shoulder length and her blue eyes looked out at the audience intelligently.

After a moment of confusion, Scully felt the presence of a small square object under her body: the remote control. "No, it's not a ghost that caused my television to come to life Mulder. This one had a logical explanation." She sighed and smiled slightly.

"When you say something like that, it's time to go to sleep, Dana," she told herself and with some difficulty managed to stand up. She made her way into the bedroom, stumbling only once before falling onto the bed and closing her eyes. Part of her knew she should get up to change but that would require moving. She ignored the sensible voice and felt herself drift into a deep sleep.

Pain woke her up a minute or so later. Her head felt as if it was about to explode and she heard voices near her.

"Did you put in the right implant?"

Angry female voice, "What kind of question is that? Don't you have enough faith in me to perform a simple job like that?"

"You've put the wrong one in before." Male voice, accusing.

"Once, but this one is important, I wouldn't make a mistake on her. 453444677 wasn't as important." She whispered this information.

"For both our sakes, I hope so."

"Shut up, she's awake."

Scully sat up with a start, looking around her bedroom with a feeling of unreality. What on earth were her dreams suggesting? Why couldn't she just have normal dreams about sex like the rest of the world? Or maybe the one where she was naked and pinned to one spot?

"God. What's happening to me?" she whispered. The voices had sounded so close. Like the voices in the morgue. She opened her suit jacket button and squirmed out of it, realizing quickly that her A/C was off again. She padded over to the bathroom, still wearing her pantyhose and looked into the mirror.

"I know who I am," she said to her reflection, took a deep breath, let it out and then tried to convince herself. "I'm fine." Then she remembered her dream. The number sequence sounded eerily like a social security number.

* * *

 

Belle Reverie Sanitarium   
8:50 PM CDT

It took longer than either man thought it would for them to bypass the first security gate. It wasn't Richardson's fault, although Mulder couldn't help but blame him. Who knew they'd put an armored guard near the door?

"Damn." Turned the corner and saw the guard, who had a blank expression on his face, he wore a black uniform. He turned back to Mulder-- "Okay, you're a visiting psychiatrist." His voice left no room for argument.

"Won't Mr. Fun over there wonder about that?"

"Not at all, doctors come in at all hours." He didn't elaborate.

"Dr. Richardson. And who is this with you?" The guard sounded younger than he looked.

"This is Dr. Smith, he's here to look at someone."

The guard looked Mulder over skeptically. "Have you cleared this with Dr. Udall?"

"Of course. He approved it earlier today." He was lying through his teeth but saying it in a way that made it sound not only obvious but also routine. He went to the touchpad and entered in his PIN. The glass doors slid open. He resisted sighing in relief, because that would have alerted the guard.

They walked through quickly, not bothering to look back. Down a long corridor with doors off to each side and up a flight of stairs. To another set of doors and another passcode.

"Let's hope this works." Richardson slid his card through the reader and entered a longer set of digits. He let out a breath when the light flashed green.

There was no talking as they made their way through the hall, passed more doors and reached another door. Yet another passcode and another green light. Richardson felt a nervous shiver start at his neck and work its way down. This could be a trap. Mulder was having similar thoughts. This was too cut and dry.

All too soon they were at the last door. Udall's office was secured with a passcode. Richardson slid a card in and pressed in a password and-- nothing. So he tried again, a different password, but no green light. He resisted the urge to kick the door.

"Dammit, the passcodes aren't working."

"How many tries do we get?"

"Three and then the friendly guards come to say hello."

"What have you tried already?"

"Suzi and his birthday."

"Those are too obvious." Mulder closed his eyes briefly and tried to think. He didn't know anything about this doctor, except that he had a trophy wife, a mansion and a penchant for BMW's...that could be it. "Try 21323."

"Okay." He entered the code. "What is it anyway?"

"BMW spelled numerically."

Richardson's eyes opened wide. "It worked!" He couldn't help the feeling of joy that coursed through him. He would be able to see his daughter again. "Okay, his computer is on the desk."

Mulder looked around immediately relieved. Nothing had been tampered with in this office. Richardson sat down in the plush leather chair and started typing.

"So you know this password and not the other one?"

"I knew one of them was his wife's name. Here." Richardson pointed to a listing of files. "It's one of these."

"The names aren't much help." They weren't. If there was a system of order to the files Mulder didn't see one. The names were dates, or maybe social security numbers or maybe just random numbers designed to confuse anyone looking at them.

"These aren't them."

"What?"

"These aren't his files. Maybe a different directory. This is it." Richardson clicked on a folder marked "Exported."

At least these names made sense. Mulder's eyes scanned the files and stopped on one. "JD31398. That's the one."

A database was launched. "Patient transferred 3/13/98 to Hooke's facility in W. Virginia. Note: considered dangerous, will arrive restrained and drugged." Mulder's stomach dropped, God if this was Scully....

They searched the rest of the files, but there was no mention of Jessica Walters.

"We have to leave," Richardson said after a moment of silence. He stood up and got ready to leave when they heard footsteps outside, getting closer.

"I knew this was too easy. We're trapped," he said with a slight whimper in his voice.

Mulder could only nod and watch the door start to open. He instinctively thought of the position of his gun, ready to grab and shoot should the necessity arise.

"Good evening, gentlemen," a light female voice said. "Are we being naughty tonight?"

Mulder had expected all sorts of impossibilities coming through that door. He had imagined a hit squad, little gray men, the Smoking Man, the Knights who say Neep! But this, this was absolutely insane.

"Are you one of them?" he asked, looking at what glid through the door and closed it.

"Agent Mulder, that's an awfully silly question. Of course I am, you don't think we'd send an absolute innocent to do the job? They screw things up," the woman said. Wesley Richardson just stared at her.

"Okay, now I have seen absolutely everything," he said finally, gawking.

"What, you're both so Neolithic you don't think a female operative is just as effective as a male one?" Daisy Hebert asked, her dark eyes sparkling. "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful and all."

"It's just- Men in Black rarely wear Daisy Dukes and halter tops."

"Who says I'm an MiB? Those clowns have no sense of style," Daisy said, her smile much more intelligent than before. "Gentlemen, we really don't have much time this evening, so I'll be brief. We're gonna have to clean you out and send you home. You both know the drill. So, will you come quietly, or do I have to bring in the Brute Squad?"

Mulder could tell Wesley was all for coming quietly-- after all, it would work out much better for him that way. Mulder sighed internally.

"We'll come quietly," he lied. Daisy smiled.

"Damn, this is fun! And if you're harboring any illusions that I'm just a girl and you can rush me and take off, first, I've got 5 big burly fellows outside waiting, and second--" Daisy grinned. With extraordinary speed, she pulled out her gun, spun, and aimed right at Mulder. "I'm no pushover myself. I sort of consider myself a successor of Emma Peel."

"Impressive," Mulder said.

"Extremely impressive," Wesley said. Daisy nodded, opened the door, and that's when Wesley pulled out a gun and shot her in the back of the leg. She squealed only a little as she went down, and Mulder and Wesley ran out of the room, where the five burly fellows outside were just far enough away to give them a running head start.

"Man, that was impressive," Mulder told Wesley as he led them through the labyrinth of Belle Reverie dodging bullets and occasionally firing back.

"Yeah," Wesley squeaked. "Did I do that?"

"Yes, you certainly did. Now, how close are we to getting out of here?"

"Make a right here, and we should be- yep. We got it."

"Laundry?" Mulder asked, appalled. "This is straight out of every bad action movie ever made!"

"Don't knock what works, Agent Mulder," Wesley said with a sigh. The two men dove into the laundry room.

"Are you sure this'll work?" Mulder asked in a whisper. Wesley nodded, and drug him into a hidden janitor's closet in the laundry room. There was several minutes silence, and then, they heard the men enter the room.

"You better come out!" Daisy screamed. "I am SO SO pissed off at both of y'all right now! Find them! Find them!"

"Look, Daisy, if there's no way out of here except through the doors, wouldn't it be far more prudent to control those access points instead of going through filthy laundry?" one of the thugs asked.

"Shut the hell up! When I find you two, I am going to rip off your--" Daisy began a very long and creative rant about how exactly Mulder and Richardson would pay for shooting her in the leg. For a girl her age, she knew a lot more than either man expected.

"Come on, Daisy, you're hurt. Let's get the hell out of here, let the guards take care of 'em. They'll keep 'em alive for you to play with later," someone else said. Daisy, winded from her screaming, let out a ragged sigh.

"I'll get you both! I swear to God, you will pay!" Daisy screamed, as the sound of footsteps moved off. Mulder and Richardson waited another five minutes, then cautiously looked out of the closet, and escaped the compound. They walked a ways back from the place, and called the Lafayette PD. The police assured them a car was on the way, and after Mulder hung up Richardson began to laugh hysterically.

"What's so damn funny, Richardson?"

"I shot her! I've never shot anyone, I wore the gun because Udall insisted! Oh. Oh my God, I think I'm gonna barf!"

Mulder prayed the police got there fast.

* * *

 

Scully's Apartment   
1:20 AM EDT

Scully had stared at the phone for at least two hours, waiting for Danny to call. After her dream she had called him, not caring about the time, and told him the social security number. She was waiting for his answer. Part of her was hoping it wasn't what she thought it was. If it was, the implications were obvious. "Trust no one," she whispered and took another sip of water. If her conclusions were correct, she would need to drink something stronger.

Her cell phone rang. "Hello?"

"Dana? It's Danny, I have the information you wanted."

"What did you find?"

"The Social Security number you gave me was for someone named Gina Wallace."

"Have you found out anything about her yet?"

"Yeah, she disappeared eight years ago at the age of fourteen. However..."

"The case has been closed."

"Right, how did you know?"

"I just knew. Have you found a file on her?"

"I'll get it and send it your way."

"Thanks, Danny."

Scully ended the call. She stared into her glass and pushed back from the table. It was 1:30 AM, almost too late to go to bed. She stood up and walked over to the liquor cabinet, her hand hovered over the handle, she wanted to be numb. Unfortunately, her mind wouldn't allow her this peace and she dropped her hand with a reluctant sigh.

Until this point, she had been preoccupied with other things, but now she realized that she hadn't heard from Mulder in over twelve hours. And that last conversation had been suspicious. She sat back down, lay her arms on the table and put her head down. What was going on? Why wasn't he trusting her? A possible answer came to her, one which she could not believe but the pieces fit. *He's working for them* and then aloud-- "He's working for them...." She lifted her head and turned to look at the rest of her apartment. There was no sound, nothing out of the ordinary. The air conditioner and her breathing were the only noises she heard. Still, she cocked her head towards the door, expecting-- what? She shook her head and sighed.

"That's impossible Dana," she chided herself. Then she flashed on another answer and felt horrible about her previous thought. Had she really become that paranoid? "He could be hurt, something could have happened in New York..." her mind supplied more scenarios. On impulse she tried his cell phone and received a recorded message saying that the cell phone she called was out of range. She resisted the urge to throw her phone across the room, which at least would accomplish something. *Tomorrow morning I'll call Detective Turnbull again and see if Mulder ever showed up.* She stood up and walked back to her bedroom. Six AM could not come fast enough.

* * *

 

Unknown Location   
3:00 AM CDT

"Megan?" A soft voice out of the haze. She didn't remember if that was the right name or not, and as she'd learned early on, it didn't matter.

Megan's eyes opened and she was immediately aware of unbelievable pain. It radiated from her leg and made her wish for unconsciousness. A whimper escaped her as the doctor checked the bandage.

"You were lucky, the bullet went straight though your leg. It did, however nick an artery, but you'll be able to walk again in a few weeks." Doctor Sorensen smiled at her.

"I don't feel very lucky. I failed, they're not going to be happy," she said in small gasping breaths, wishing for painkillers. She gritted her teeth after each word and tears sprung to her eyes. "Morphine..."

"Now, now Megan. You said so yourself, you failed and so you'll suffer." He smiled down at her.

"Because of your actions, Mulder and his little friend got away with that information. You might have single-handedly exposed us." Angry now, no longer friendly. He touched her leg, barely putting pressure on the bandaged wound.

She bit her lip and dug her nails into her hand. She wouldn't scream, if she did they'd think her weak. She couldn't let that happen. Still, oh God it hurt, throbbed, any adjective she could think of fit the pain well. He pressed harder and she found new meaning to the word agony. The bandage started to turn red and as tears coursed down her face, she dimly felt her pillow become wet. Her lip was starting to bleed. Her hands gripped the sheets tightly.

"I'll get it back, I'll stop him..." Incoherent babbling, anything to stop the pain.

"I'll get him, I promise...he won't get away he won't, I'm sorry I let him get away....he won't find her, we'll move her...get him on the road, on his way, mindwipe, oh God, please just make it go away." Her last words were almost unintelligible, yet she was unable to recognize herself begging. The blood rushed in her ears and she wanted to feel nothing. Her wide dark eyes looked up at him pleadingly, the previous sparkle gone.

He laughed softly and caressed her cheek. She resisted the urge to bite his fingers. "Will you, Megan?"

"Yes." She would have agreed to anything at that moment.

He laughed again and pulled out a needle. He jabbed it into her hip and she felt the pain wonderfully start to fade.

"You won't fail us again Megan."

"I won't," she whispered and fell asleep.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "caught a lite sneeze dreamed a little dream made my own pretty hate machine boys on my left side boys on my right side boys in the middle and you're not here." --Tori Amos, "Caught a Lite Sneeze"

**Chapter Seven**   
**Scully's Apartment**   
**7:45 AM EDT**

"He never contacted you, even once?" Scully repeated into the phone as she looked around her closet for her favorite black heels. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted them and threw them out of the closet, sending them sailing into the suitcase on the bed.

"No, ma'am," the secretary's voice said. "He's working on the same case as you?"

"Yes. Is Detective Turnbull in yet?"

"He doesn't come in until 9, ma'am," the secretary said. "But there have been no calls to us from any FBI agents, or anyone named Fox Mulder. I'm really very sorry. What case was it that you were working on again?"

"Jessica Walters. Missing persons. Closed rather abruptly," Scully said, rustling through her underwear drawer. Dammit, she cursed internally. At least this woman was being as helpful as she could.

"Oh, really? Let me look at that-- oh, oh yeah," the secretary said. "That was a doozy of a case."

"Really? How?" Scully asked, deciding that what she packed was plenty, she was prepared for everything short of a formal dinner or a date at a wild club, and what were the odds of either of those happening?

"Well, the department was going nuts over it-- I mean, this girl was just gone. They were gonna comb the city for her. The mother was here twenty-four seven. She and the officers would fight. It was noisy and just-- crazy. Then, one day, the father and a couple a other guys came in, talked to Turnbull and some other higher-ups, and the thing just-- shriveled," the secretary said, her Brooklyn accent rising and fading on the phone. "Do ya want me to call ya if this Mr. Mulder does come by?"

"No-- actually, I'm on my way up to New York myself to do some further investigation. What's your name again? You've been extremely helpful."

"Nancy Demich," the woman said. "I hope ya find him, ma'am."

"Thanks," Scully said, and hung up. She refrained from cursing aloud. Damn Mulder! Where the hell had he gone? He was driving her crazy-- well, more crazy than usual, anyway.

"I'm a busy girl this morning," she told herself to prevent another attack of paranoid thoughts. "Gotta stop by the FBI building and get that file from Danny, take a flight from Dulles to New York, find my partner, find Jessica Walters, figure out who the hell this Gina kid is, and oh, yeah, I have to take some time off and figure out what's going on with me."

The phone rang. "Scully."

"Dana, it's Mom," a familiar voice said. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies today. That new movie, City of Angels. It looks good."

"Yeah, but I hate Nicholas Cage."

There was a surprised pause on the other side of the line.

"Dana, you've loved Nicholas Cage since Rich Man, Poor Man. He's your favorite actor except for Ralph Fiennes. You watched Leaving Las Vegas four times. When did you start hating Nicholas Cage?" Mrs. Scully asked. "Oh, never mind. You were joking, weren't you?"

Scully managed a weak little laugh. "Yeah. Actually, Mom, I have to go to New York. For work. Mom--?"

"It's okay, honey. What?"

"I love you," Scully said.

"I love you, too, honey. Don't worry, we'll go see City of Angels some other time. You have a good day, Dana," Mrs. Scully said, hanging up.

Scully sat on the bed. "I ***hate*** Nicholas Cage. I know that. I hate him. I like John Cusack and Leonardo di Caprio-- even if he is a little young. But Nicholas Cage?"

A terrible idea quietly suggested itself to Scully, even as she was zipping up her little suitcase, grumbling-- "Nicholas Cage. He's okay, I mean-- but--"

"You don't know who you are." Nadia Walter's snappish words came back to Scully with a certain force. The memories of her nightmares, Mulder's sudden distant behavior-- they all clicked into a horrifying what if. What if--?

"That's absurd," Scully said, picking up her suitcase with a certain violent jerk. "It's not possible yet, anyway. It's not true."

She still grabbed a couple of old journals of hers. To read on the plane, she assured herself. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

* * *

 

Lafayette PD   
April 17, 1998   
8:00 AM CDT

Mulder was in a terrible mood as he slurped the chicory-enhanced coffee Lafayette PD had provided. Ardoin was glaring at Wesley Richardson.

"We wanted to go in and assist you, but this little-- weasel-- told us that it wasn't permitted. Dammit, Mulder, I don't know who you think you are, screwing around in a murder investigation like that."

"We've described the most likely suspect in that murder for you three times. Dr. Richardson here will try to help you all gain access to what's left of Belle Reverie--"

"That's another thing. Belle Reverie is a mental institution, not a prison. I don't understand how the security can be so tight," Ardoin said. "What the hell is going on there?"

"Things," Richardson said softly. "Where's Amy?"

"She's safe," Ardoin said. "Now cut the bullshit and explain exactly what's going on."

"I've explained everything you need to know," Mulder said. "Now, I have to get going. I have to get to Baton Rouge and get a flight to West Virginia."

"You can't just cut out like that, Mulder!" Ardoin shouted.

"Here's my card. If you really have any more questions for me, get in touch with me that way."

"You're not just taking off for West Virginia all by yourself!?" Richardson said. "You're crazy. You'll never make it."

"I'm busy, Richardson. I hope it all works out for you," Mulder said, planning to leave.

"Bullshit," Richardson said. "You're not going to walk out like that, Mulder. You're not helping anyone, least of all her, by turning suicidal. You'll wait."

Mulder (and Ardoin) stared in shock at exactly how cool and businesslike the little weasel before them had turned. He had the icy, furious manner of a man who would take no more nonsense from anyone.

Sulking, Mulder got another cup of the bizarre coffee with chicory and slumped down in his chair.

"Well, let's get down to business, gentlemen," Mulder said, trying not to piss anyone off further.

* * *

 

American Airlines Flight 617   
Between DC and NYC   
9:35 AM EDT

Scully had tried to pay attention to Gina Wallace's case. It was simply impossible. She'd examined the picture for a while. Thirteen year old Gina had been pretty, in a defiant, tough girl sort of way. But Scully still wasn't exactly sure what connection Gina had to the entire case. Had Gina's abduction been like Jessica's? Or was Gina related to Scully's dreams and suspicions?

The truth was, Scully knew she was right at the edge of being unfit to work. So she set aside the mysterious cases of Jessica and Gina and took out her old journals, as well as some paper. The good old scientific method, she thought, being put to the test on something as unscientific as memory. Still, it was better than nothing.

Twenty minutes later, she had a page and a half filled with stupid, stupid lists. It was almost too humiliating to continue. There were just so many details that weren't meshing between Scully's memory and her records. But that didn't mean anything, after all. The journals could be fakes. She could be reading too much into this. She could be a fake--

"Are you okay?" her seatmate asked.

"What?"

"You look really upset," the man said. He was just a little younger than her mother, Scully figured, nice enough looking. "I'm sorry, I'm a psychologist, I have a daughter your age."

"Oh. I'm just tired," Scully said.

"Tired, huh? I know how that is."

They chatted for a while, and when the plane landed, Scully wasn't feeling as terrified as she had been.

"Hey, I forgot to ask," Scully said, as she was about to head for the rental car counter. "What's your name?"

"Walters. Jim Walters. And you?"

Walters. It was too much of a coincidence. Scully backed away from the man, mumbling something, and fled to the rental car counter.

"Is everything in my life a freaking conspiracy?" she muttered. The rental car girl looked surprised. "Not you."

"Whatever," the rental girl replied. Scully took the keys, and, still nervous, made for the parking lot. Jim Walters watched as she left, and picked up a cell phone.

"Yeah, it's Walters. I think she suspects. We might have to speed some things up. No, don't get panicky, but between the situation in Broussard and now this, we've got problems. Sometimes I wonder why we don't just shoot first and ask questions later."

He knew he shouldn't have said it. Especially when he was greeted with silence. "I know, I'll keep an eye on her." He pressed End on his cell phone and prepared himself to return to practice. He had clients to see later that day.

* * *

 

New York City Police Station   
11:30 AM EDT

"Agent Scully? I'm sorry, he just stepped out." Nancy Demich smiled down at her. She held a file in her left hand and a cup of coffee in her right. She handed both to Scully, who smiled back at Nancy, especially for the coffee. The woman had short blonde hair and was normal sized. She had to have been around 35 or 40 and Scully bet she had a few kids waiting for her at home.

"Thank you, is there anyone else I can speak to?"

"Well, there's Detective Turnbull's ex-partner, John Forester. He transferred a few months ago, but I don't remember to where."

"Can you find that information for me?"

Nancy nodded. The way Turnbull had dismissed the case months before had weighed on her conscience. This was her chance to make reparations. She walked over to her desk and entered the name into her computer. An entry came up. "Here, transferred to East Canaan in Northwest Connecticut. His number is 203-555-3565."

Scully put down her coffee for a second and wrote this information down on a small pad. She wondered why Forester had left the heavy crime and work section of New York for a small town somewhere in Connecticut.

"Will Detective Turnbull be in later today?" She put the pad in her pocket and picked up the coffee again. She took a sip and couldn't help but smile. The coffee was perfect.

"He should be." Nancy hated lying for him. Truth was the minute he heard the FBI was coming, he suddenly and inexplicably came down with the flu in the middle of April.

"When he gets in tell him to give me a call." Scully handed her a card.

Nancy nodded and Scully left the precinct. She drank the rest of her coffee and threw the cup into a nearby garbage can. Once inside her rental car she looked at the file and was shocked to find that it was a missing persons report on Gina Wallace, but not the one that she had seen. Her eyes widened as she read: The report was signed by Detective John Forester.

"If coincidences are just coincidences then why do they feel so contrived?" She whispered and called John Forester.

"Forester."

"Detective Forester, this is Agent Dana Scully and I'd like to ask you a few questions about Gina Wallace."

"It's been years since I've heard that name. Has she been found?"

"No, but I would like to talk with you about the case. I think that her disappearance is connected to something," she paused searching for the right words, "else. Something bigger."

"How long will it take you to get to East Canaan?"

"Two hours, maybe less. But I've never..."

"I'll see you then. It's not safe to talk about this over the phone." He hung up.

Scully pressed End on her phone and took a map out of the glove compartment. Finding the town on the list of cities took a few seconds and once she found the town she could find a route. "I-95 to I 84 and then I-84 onto US 7, and from there finally, US 44." She mumbled. Two hours was probably a kind estimate.

* * *

 

11:25 AM CDT   
Lafayette, LA

"Daddy!" Amy screamed and ran towards her father. She was so worried about him, after she was put in that strange car and driven to this place. No one would tell her what was happening. This made her upset. She was seven after all! They told Suzi what was going on. But now everything was okay, because daddy was back.

"Amy baby!" He picked her up and hugged her tightly. He thought he'd never see her again.

She kissed his cheek. "Why am I here?"

"Something happened to a friend of mine. You're here because it's safe and I want to keep you safe. Isn't Suzi being nice to you?"

"Yes, but I don't like this place. I wanna go back to Mommy."

"Baby, it's too dangerous."

"Why?"

"It just is," he said softly.

"We've got to go, Richardson," Mulder called from the door, getting increasingly impatient. Ardoin barely let them out of the room and something told him that if Richardson wasn't there to back up his story, the cop would have never believed him. He ran a hand through his hair and checked his watch again. The plane was at 12:30. How much time did this guy think he had?

"You're leaving again?" Amy asked burying her head into Richardson's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."

She lifted her head, "Promise?"

"Swear to God."

"Okay," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. She hugged him tightly one more time. He bent over and placed her back on the floor.

"I love you Daddy."

"I love you too, Amy baby." One last hand squeeze, and then he turned back to Mulder.

"If we run into trouble, you're on your own. I'm not breaking my promise to Amy," Richardson stated.

"I understand," Mulder answered, and they walked out the door.

* * *

 

East Canaan PD   
Detective John Forester's Office

Forester's office was a mess. It reminded Scully of the basement. He didn't have the I WANT TO BELIEVE poster- his said- "It's a conspiracy, a C-O-N-spiracy."

"Hello? Detective Forester?"

"Are you that FBI agent?" Forester asked. He was hidden from her view by a big creaky leather chair that was also very familiar.

"Yes, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully."

"Let me see your badge," Forester said. "Set it on the desk."

Scully put her badge on the desk. Forester spun around, and examined it. "Dana Katherine Scully, Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Where do you work in the Bureau, Agent Scully?"

"A special division, known colloquially as the X-Files. May I have-"

"And your partner is the infamous Fox Mulder?" Forester asked. His voice was extremely calm, like he was testing her. She still hadn't seen his face completely.

"Yes, also known as Spooky Mulder, we've been working together a little more than five years. What else is on your test, Mr. Forester?"

"What do you know about Gina Wallace? How did you get involved?" Forester asked, his voice cold.

"I know she's missing, but it's not the first time. I know she has a chip in her neck, manufactured by the people who took her. I know that she's probably in a great deal of danger, and that this is not the only girl who's disappeared like this," Scully said. Forester laughed.

"Well, god damn, Agent Scully, you're not a complete babe in the woods, then. Who else do you know who's disappeared like this?"

"Jessica Walters. You know something about that?"

"I know the people who took her shoved a shitload of money at my partner Turnbull, and it just went away. I know that girl's dad is as dirty as President Clinton but smarter. I know that the mother's not giving up. But you haven't answered my second question, Agent Dana Scully."

"What question?"

"How did you get involved?"

Scully looked at Forester, who had finally turned to face her. He wasn't that old, maybe forty, a black man, attractive, but definitely unhappy.

"My partner was given this case by Mrs. Walters. She wants someone to find her daughter."

"So how did we get from Gina Wallace to Jessica Walters?" Forester asked, still holding her badge.

"I had a dream," Scully blurted. "In the dream, I was- someone was experimenting on me. And I heard someone say a social security number. I had the FBI labs run the number and it was for Gina Wallace."

"You-- you're an abductee too, aren't you, Agent Scully?"

"I don't know. I think so. I think it might be even more than that," Scully said. She couldn't believe she was about to confess her doubts to this absolute stranger. But he reminded her of Mulder. And she could trust Mulder, even when he didn't trust her.

Forester handed her back her badge. "Well, pull up a chair, Scully," he said. "Not much going on in East Canaan, Connecticut. I've got plenty of time for unofficial investigations."

"The Wallace case, it really got to you," Scully said.

"Eight years ago, it was a big case. I saw things on that case, things that scarred me, Agent Scully," Forester said. "And it happens over and over again. Some nights, I still wake up and hear Gina Wallace, accusing me. Accusing a world that couldn't protect her. They take these little girls-- and it's not right. It's a lie and an abomination on the world. When we got to the Walters case, I knew the outcome before I even signed on. Jim Walters knows where his daughter is. And you-- what's this more to you?"

"I don't know if I'm the real Dana Scully," Scully said. "There's a distinct possibility I'm not."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I might be a clone," Scully said, stone-faced.

"A clone? You've got to be kidding."

"I know it sounds absolutely crazy-- and I'm not sure. I don't know. But I've been having these dreams and these strange urges-- I almost drove into an eighteen-wheeled truck, I mean. And, I was talking to my mother, and she said my favorite actor was someone I'd never thought I'd liked-- I was looking in my journal, and it turns out she was right-- just little, little things."

"What if they're doing it to you deliberately?" Forester asked. "Paranoia is one of their most effective tools."

"Like I said, I'm not sure," Scully said. "But then there's my partner. He's run off somewhere, and without saying a word to me. He does-- leave me every so often, but not like this. I think he believes I'm a clone."

"A campaign of disinformation... what better way to lower your effectiveness as an agent than to make you doubt yourself?" Forester asked.

"I don't doubt myself. Even if I am a clone. My beliefs are the same. I will follow the same code. If there is another me-- the mother model or some such nonsense-- she's probably in need of help. And I'll help her. Like I want to help Gina, and Jessica, and myself," Scully heard herself say resolutely.

"Well, if you are a clone, they made a God damn mistake in manufacturing you, Agent Scully," Forester said with a grin. "You're working for the enemy, girlfriend."

"They are no one's friend, Detective Forester," Scully said. "So why don't we cut the small talk for now and figure out what we know, and what we can do about it."

Forester regarded her with a little surprise, but recovered quickly. "All right, then. Let's talk about Gina Wallace and Jessica Walters."

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;" --Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

**Chapter Eight**   
**Flight from Baton Rouge to Charleston WV**

Richardson quietly accepted the third Dr. Pepper that the overly attractive stewardess pressed on him, and contemplated the terrain flying beneath them.

"So, Hooke's facility-- that's not the official name of the place, is it?" Mulder asked him.

"I think it's officially Pleasant Rest or something stupid like that," Richardson said. "So, what's the in flight movie today?"

"Do you really care?"

"No. I'm just hoping it's something incredibly soothing. No Tarantino, no Coens. I want something mindless and cute with a happy ending, if that's not too much to ask," Richardson said. "Excuse me miss, what's the in-flight movie?"

"Babe," the stewardess replied. Richardson sighed gratefully and settled into his chair.

"Thank you, God. Something has decided to go my way for once," he said with a contented smile.

* * *

 

**East Canaan PD**   
**Forester's Office**

"That's pretty much all I've found." Scully sighed and sunk further into the chair. "We don't know much, do we?"

Forester nodded. He seemed lost in memories.

"I remember Mrs. Wallace. She was a sweet woman. The loss of her daughter almost destroyed her," he mused. "Gina was brought in a couple of times for shoplifting, the usual teenaged nonsense, but overall she was a good kid. When she disappeared, the parents blamed themselves. But what could they have done? It made me feel terrible."

"Was it different with Jessica?" Scully asked. "I talked with her mother, and she was pretty miserable."

"Yeah, there were some differences between Gina's folks and Jessica's," Forester answered. "Jim Walters wasn't exactly grieving, if you know what I mean. He was in on it. I couldn't prove it but his talks with my partner were... interesting. I swear I saw Turnbull show Walters Gina's file. After that happened, I entrusted the file to Nancy and told her not to let Turnbull get his hands on it. But there was already something missing from it."

"What was missing?" Scully asked.

"A second disappearance. When Gina was twelve, she went missing for twenty hours," Forester explained.

"Why was that information removed?"

"I have no idea. My guess would be that it's tied into her final disappearing act."

"I bet Jim Walters could shed some light on the subject," Scully said. "Maybe we should pay him a visit."

"I think we should," Forester replied. "Do you have any problems with going now? We'll take my car."

"I'll be there in a minute. Where is your...?"

"Bathroom? Go outside the office, make a right and then a left. You can't miss it."

He opened the door and said as he left, "I'll go start the car."

Scully nodded and walked out the door.

"You'd better start this time, you piece of--" Forester warned his car as he walked towards it. The unmarked Buick was about two years old and it was already having mechanical problems. He'd have to talk to someone about it on Monday. He sighed, opened the car door, and shivered involuntarily. The damn temperature had been erratic as hell. One week it had been swelteringly hot, and the next it was chilly and rainy. Damn El Nino.

Scully walked out of the building and towards the car. It was a good 150 feet away. She felt the rain before she actually saw it, but kept her pace. She didn't mind getting a little wet. Besides it was more like a mist than a shower.

Forester turned the key to start the car. He couldn't wait to face down that bastard Walters.

There was a loud noise. Scully immediately fell to the ground and covered her head and neck. The heat and shock wave rumbled past her, and finally she stood up. The car, or what was left of it, sat before her like an apocalyptic vision. Flames burst from all open areas, a flume of smoke was rising up into the air. She averted her eyes. The fire was too bright. It appeared as if part of the car had actually melted. There was no way anyone could survive.

"Forester!" she screamed, knowing that he wasn't going to answer.

A car's engine roared from somewhere behind her and a blue Taurus quickly drove away. It wasn't an accident. Well, that was already pretty obvious. But it was connected to her. She had helped kill this man as surely as if she'd shot him herself. Even if she was a clone, the guilt touched her deeply.

"I'm sorry," she found herself whispering before walking towards her car.

Her body shook slightly. That could have been me in the car, she realized after getting into her rental. The key wasn't going in. She kept missing the slot because her hands were shaking too much. She gave up and threw the keys against the passenger door. Her mind made the next connection. That Taurus had been following her.

Breathe, just breathe, she told herself, trying to keep back the fear. She covered her face with her hands and rubbed her eyes slowly with the tips of her fingers. Out of her windshield, she could still see the flames. Her hands dropped and she took another ragged breath. Leaning over, she was able to reach the keys and finally got the key into the slot. But she hesitated, was it safe to start the car? Maybe they wired both of them. She stepped out of the car and knelt down. There was no way in hell she was starting the car without first performing a thorough examination.

Underneath the car looked normal. The engine and everything else was in shape. There were no extra wires, no small boxes. Chances were that the car would not blow up after being started. Still, she wasn't sure. Sitting back down and closing the door she put her key in the slot and said a silent prayer.

The car started and she exhaled. No use seeing Walters now. Maybe there were answers to be found back in the DC labs.

* * *

 

Near Hernshaw, West Virginia

"You're kidding."

"Do you see this car moving at all?" The rain beat down on the windshield, obscuring the road.

"Well, maybe... no." Mulder cursed the weather.

"I can't drive in this. We have to wait."

"But there's no time. We have to keep going."

"You'll have to get out and walk then, because this car isn't going anywhere." Usually the highway was better. This time, there had been too much rain lately and the ground hadn't had a chance to recover.

"How long will this take?" Mulder asked, drumming his fingers on the window.

"I don't know. I hope there's a good radio station somewhere around here."

Mulder shot Richardson a dark little look and went back to examining the information in his head. That immediately became worrying. Images of Scully waiting for him, each day losing a little more hope. Losing her grasp on sanity as they needled her closer to the edge. And what if it were worse than that? What if he found her in the same state as he had in the Georgetown hospital almost four years ago? What if what if what if? All because of him.

"Bag of chips for your thoughts," Richardson said.

"How do you stand it?" Mulder asked. "Knowing what you've done. Knowing what you've allowed, that it's your fault. How do we deal with it?"

Richardson shook his head. "I don't know how to do anything except breathe, Agent Mulder. Take one breath, let it out, take another breath. I don't romanticize it. I just do it. It's amazing what can happen when you just breathe."

"So you just breathe. What happens then? Do you just exhale when they kill your daughter? Do you take a deep breath when every part of you that's human is slowly eaten away? Can you stand to look at yourself, Richardson?"

"I have a saying: Love God and do what you will," Richardson replied. "I try to think of it that way."

"You stole that from St. Augustine, you little shit," Mulder said, half-amused, half-disgusted.

"No, I stole it from my Uncle Jerry. He stole it from St. Augustine," Richardson said. "My God, look at the rain!"

He was very clearly ending the conversation. Mulder turned his head to the window and looked as the sheets of water surrounded them, perhaps the clouds weeping for the injustice for the world. Mulder shook his head and went back to considering his plans and guilt.

* * *

 

Somewhere in New York

Scully had been too stunned to do anything much except drive blindly in the rain, which had gotten steadily harder as she'd gone along. Finally she'd decided it was time to regroup and stop a minute. Peering through the downpour, she'd seen the sign glowing forlornly at the side of the road. Bo's Diner. She pulled off the road and parked in the gravel lot. Then she'd run as fast as she could into the diner.

The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" was cranking it out on the rickety old jukebox which was possibly the last one in America still to be using 45s. The place was mostly empty, with only a few grizzled faces glaring out from her at the few booths. Scully surveyed the room for a booth near a window so she could watch her car. She spotted a place and slid in, feeling the vinyl moisten from the rain trickling off of her.

"Hello there," Scully heard. Jumpy, she blinked as she looked up at the vision before her. The waitress was a middle-aged woman, her platinum hair up in-- yeah, it was a beehive-- snapping her gum, a big strapping woman in her pink uniform and white apron which was spotted lightly with grease. A liberally decorated nametag announced her name was Wanda.

"Hey," Scully said softly.

"I'm Wanda, here's the menu. I recommend the chocolate creme pie-- it's our specialty. Aren't you sad looking for such a pretty girl? What happened? Did you break up with your boyfriend?" the waitress asked, her tone the vocal equivalent of a rapid-fire machine gun. Scully wanted to cry at the barrage of questions, but decided instead to give this amazing grotesque a thrill.

"Actually," Scully said dryly, "I'm quite possibly a genetic clone. I'm on the run from a shadow government who just tried to kill me by placing a car bomb in an innocent man's car. Now I have to get back to work, prove I'm a clone, and discredit this global conspiracy for all I'm worth before I get killed. No boyfriend, though."

Wanda stared at her. "I think we'd better get some black coffee for you, missy."

"Yeah, could I have an open-faced turkey sandwich with cranberry dressing and onion rings with that coffee?" Scully asked, feigning an enthusiasm she didn't feel. Wanda nodded and backed away, a smile plastered to her face.

"Sure-- you crazy..."

Scully thought about many things, waiting for that turkey sandwich. It all boiled down to a single thought-- everyone wanted her in their control, and if not that, dead. If she was right, if she herself were a **clone** who not only was a perfect match for the original Dana Katherine Scully, she had the woman's memories, she was the story of the century.

Right now, she had several small advantages. Mulder had not yet recovered his Scully. They had failed to get rid of her in East Canaan. No one else realized Scully might not be herself. She had the original's badge, gun, and identity. She had a little time. She just had to stay alive and prove her proposition.

"Here's your sandwich, missy," Wanda said, plunking the plate down. "Were you just tryin' to be funny before?"

"Not really," Scully said. "Could I get some water, too? Hey-- do you really believe a person could be cloned?"

"Eh. It would just be another thing the government knew about and wasn't telling us-- like ayleens. My brother Wilbur, in the Air Force, he says there's an ayleen craft in Newport News, Virginia. Really. Hey, do you know anything about ayleens, missy?"

"I know a little," Scully admitted, privately laughing to herself. Boy howdy, if that weren't the understatement of the century-- even if she weren't a clone and just crazy...

* * *

 

Still Near Hernshaw, WV

"I don't believe that what you're saying is possible. I mean, really-- I mean, really--" Richardson stuttered.

"Her name was Bambi," Mulder replied conversationally. "So, you and Jessica Walters?"

Richardson's expression went dark. "I cared about her."

"But you were married to someone else."

"I didn't-- we didn't-- you don't understand. Jessica was a wonderful human being, not a waste of space like her father. I was working with Jim Walters on reproducing one person's memories in another. It appears that he's succeeded, you notice. Jessica was close to her father. I got to know her pretty well."

"But you didn't know about her disappearance?" Mulder asked curiously.

"Jim and I had a falling-out over ethics. He wanted to try his implanted memories on people-- and not just harmless ones. It was something out of Total Recall or something," Richardson said. "I know to you, G-Man, I'm a minion of the devil but don't laugh."

Mulder almost said something but thought of Ostelhof, and bit his tongue.

"This woman you're going to save, what is she to you that you're willing to defy everything to go after her?" Richardson asked. "Are you lovers?"

"No. Not even close. But she's my friend, she's my partner-- I don't think there's anyone on earth who means what Scully means to me."

"This rain is really a pain in the ass," Richardson said vaguely.

"I know. I know," Mulder replied.

* * *

 

FBI Labs

"What exactly is it that we're looking for, Agent Scully?" the lab technician asked.

"Anything. Any anomaly, I don't care how small it is, between this test and the ones taken right after I went into remission, you tell me about it. I want a complete examination. If I have one missing scar, one extra freckle, I want to know about it," Scully told her.

The technician nodded slowly. "Head to toe check, okay. Blood work, genetic scans, DNA-- looking for anything special?"

"Just anything out of the ordinary," Scully said.

The phone rang, and one of the other technicians grabbed it. "Agent Scully? It's AD Skinner."

Scully rushed over and grabbed the phone. "Scully."

"Agent Scully, I need to speak to you immediately in my office."

"Sir, I have a project of the utmost personal importance in pro--"

"I need to speak to you, Agent Scully. It's non-negotiable."

Scully groaned as she hung up the phone. She trusted Skinner-- he'd saved herself (her other self, anyway) and Mulder from problems any number of times, but he was often used by others to manipulate and deceive.

"Okay, Munoz?" she said to the technician. "I have to go. You get started on the samples I've given you and notify me of any developments, all right?"

"Yes, Agent Scully."

Scully hurried up to the office wondering if they were going to force Skinner to make her give up her advantage. It was entirely possible. But she wouldn't allow it. She'd go public as was, without any proof, rather than be handed over to Them. She opened the door and smiled grimly. There were two men sitting in Skinner's office beside the Assistant Director.

One of them was Jim Walters.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline." --REM, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"

"Good afternoon, Agent Scully. These gentlemen wanted to speak to you," Skinner said. He was obviously not in the best of moods.

"Hello, Mr. Walters," Scully replied. "How are you today?"

"You know her?" Skinner asked Walters. Scully grinned.

"Jim and I are great chums aren't we, Jimmy? He told me all about his poor daughter, Jessie," Scully said, deciding to play this as Mulder would. She had nothing to lose. "You see sir, Jessie Walters disappeared a couple years back. Quite a tragedy. At least Mrs. Walters thought so and Detective Forester, too. I don't know about you or Detective Turnbull here. You are Turnbull, right?"

The two men stared at her in surprise. Skinner looked at her like she'd grown a new nose.

"We came here to ask you a few questions about--"

"Forester's death," Scully finished for them, the adrenaline rushing through her veins. If they could arrest her or have reason to take her anywhere, it was over for her. "Ah, yes. John Forester. Died today, didn't he? Car bomb, wasn't it?"

"So you know about it," Turnbull said.

"I didn't do it," Scully replied. "Not even you would suggest I killed him. I was walking toward the car when it blew. Pity your people got that car. Mine was the rental Taurus. It would have been a much better choice."

"Agent Scully, are you suggesting these men--"

"Sir, with all due respect the affair between these men and myself is not your business. I am sure the inquest into John Forester's death will produce no evidence that these men are involved. They simply want to suggest I know something. I would suggest they are more interested in stopping my investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Walters' daughter Jessica. Her disappearance is quite possibly tied into my own, you see--"

Skinner looked at Walters and Turnbull with his steel gaze. "Is that a fact, Agent Scully?"

"I don't know, sir. I know that Agent Mulder does. That it might be where he is," Scully began. Walters interrupted.

"You know what he's looking for," Walters said. "And you know what will happen to you if he finds it."

"Now you listen here!" Skinner said. Scully shook her head at him.

"I know what'll happen to you, Jimmy," Scully said. "Tell your friends that I know who I am and that I **will**  go public."

Walters' face went white. Then he sneered with a false bravado.

"You'll never be able to prove it."

Turnbull and Skinner looked confused at the exchange between them, but Scully knew Walters knew what she was talking about.

"Tell them I'll deal. My freedom for my silence. No more of this assassination crap, no more yanking at this--" and she tapped her neck. "I can stay quiet and out of sight, even if Mulder finds what he's after. But it'll cost you."

"They won't deal with you," Walters said bluntly.

"Then they'll be screwed won't they, Jimmy?" Scully said. "Now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I'm very busy."

She paused a moment in case Skinner had anything else to say to her and hurried back down to the labs. The sudden muster of force from her enemies had convinced her that there was something that would prove she was a clone, and that her time was short to discover it.

Silently she thought of the other version of herself, locked away somewhere with Mulder ready to find her.

Her footsteps resounded in the hall steady and tapping like a heartbeat.

Back in the office Skinner was trying to repair the damage.

"You'll have to excuse Agent Scully. She's been under a lot of stress lately." He stood up to send them off.

"Yes, of course. If Agent Scully remembers any more details about it, have her give Detective Turnbull a call."

Skinner nodded, still confused by Scully's behavior. "I'll give her the message."

Turnbull handed Skinner his card. He hadn't said a word.

They both left his office. Skinner sat down at his desk and looked down at the Detective's card. Something about those two he didn't trust. He tucked the card into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Walters waited until he was in his car to make the necessary phone call. His fingers shook with rage. Someone was going to pay for this.

"Walters here. She knows. No, I don't know how she knows! We were so damn careful... if this gets out...." He listened for a moment.

"No, not just that. We'll be ostracized from the scientific community. Yes, but this will destroy our standing with the current administration. You know the President's feelings on this." Walters closed his eyes and spoke over the person on the other end of the phone.

"Dammit, we have no choice. I don't care if the damn experiments are over or not, you have to release her!" he screamed, trying to find an outlet for his anger. He paused again.

"According to my people he's stuck on the road to Sundial. Dump her, and he'll find her. Shit, I can't believe this is happening. *You* said that replacing her would stop his inquires! How the hell did this get out?"

He tried unsuccessfully to calm down.

"Don't you blame the car bomb on me. That was your idea! No? Great, some overzealous operative took manners into their own hands! I don't fucking believe this. A car bomb in a small town is something people notice!" Walters took a deep breath.

"Damage control... yes, that's what we need. Yes, I understand. Just do it. Put a hit out on her-- now. The sooner the better. She knows, we have to make sure it ends with that." Walters took another deep breath and pressed end on the phone. He barely resisted the urge to throw the phone out of the window and get a plane ticket to a sunny island, far from all these problems.

"People just keep fucking up and fucking up," he said angrily as he started his car.

* * *

 

FBI Labs 7:00 PM

"Okay Agent Scully, we ran those tests you wanted but I don't understand why you wanted us to biopsy your smallpox scar," Munoz said.

"Is there a clear photo of the last biopsy in my file?" Scully asked.

"Yes."

"Check to see if the 3-D images match." Scully stood near the computer, trying not to be nervous. This was it, for all the marbles. If they matched, then she was paranoid. They'd checked everything else; this was the only thing left. If they didn't, then she was a clone.

"Agent Scully, here are the results." Munoz handed her two sheets of clear paper.

She took a deep breath and looked over the paper again. There was no mistake. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't even Dana Scully.

"Thank you Munoz." She smiled at the short blonde lab technician.

"No problem Agent Scully. Are you ever going to tell me what this was all about?"

"Maybe some day Munoz." She walked out of the lab.

* * *

 

Hernshaw, WV

"I think the rain's clearing," Richardson announced. After sitting in the car with Mulder for about four hours and not moving he was half tempted to make a run for it.

"Finally," Mulder answered, looking out of the window. At least he could see more than streaks of water. The constant noise of rain on the roof had stopped.

Cars that had stopped on the side of road started up again and were moving slowly forward.

"How far are we from Sundial?" Mulder asked, buckling his seatbelt.

"You ask me like I've been there before," Richardson sighed. "My guess would be about 35 miles."

Mulder nodded. Richardson turned the car back on and started towards their destination.

Further Down the Road

A white unmarked van pulled over to the side of the road. The two back doors of the van opened to reveal two men dressed in white nurse uniforms. Both seemed out of place and awkward. A woman lay behind them, her blue eyes closed and her breathing normal.

"I feel bad about this," the taller man said to his slightly shorter companion.

"I wouldn't." The shorter man stepped behind the woman. "They're our orders and we follow them out. Including wearing these ridiculous outfits."

"But we're leaving her on the side of a highway totally defenseless."

The shorter man sneered. "Defenseless like a coiled rattlesnake. She gave us enough problems during her," he searched for the right word, "stay. Hell it would makes matters better if she was ran over by a passing car."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, it wouldn't be our fault and it would finally get rid of the bitch."

The taller man glanced at his companion. "It's not our decision."

The shorter man walked to stand next to him and they rolled the woman out of the van. She landed with a soft thud on the grass. The taller man hit the front of the compartment and they started to move.

"Besides, he'll be here soon," the taller man said as they drove off.

* * *

There was silence as she woke today. Evidently they were being kind or stepping up sedative use, Scully thought as she moved to shift her wrists-- and found them unbound. What the HELL?

Was she dead? Or could she actually be-- could the miracle actually have happened? She opened her eyes faster than she had since her latest nightmare had begun. She looked and instead of white walls, she saw trees and heard birds. It was absolutely unreal. She groaned as she sat up, trying to reorient herself.

Ah, lovely. They'd left her in a ditch at the side of the road in the rain and the dark. Anything could have happened to her in this position. Fortunately it hadn't, but it didn't help matters. She had no idea where she was, she was feeling the residuals of all sorts of drugs and God only knew what else in her system. But at least she was free. She'd just have to stand up-- oh, God, oh GOD, it felt wonderful and disorienting to be able to do that for no other reason than that she wanted to-- and--

Car. Speeding down the road. Scully's endocrine system took over at that point, her survival wishes honed to a razor sharp edge by the incredible abuses placed on them. She felt herself almost throw her body before the car, dizzy and stunned by this turn of events.

"STOP! PLEASE! STOP!" the ragged scream fell from her throat. And because her muscles were so out of practice she fell to her knees, wet and cold and desperate. But not afraid. Definitely unafraid.

The car squealed to a stop about fifty yards past her. She was struggling to stand up. A tall male form leapt out of the driver's side.

"SCULLY?"

Okay, she was dreaming. That was it. No way she could be left on a side of the road, and the person who drives by to find her could be--

"Mulder?" she asked. The form hooted.

"You look like hell!" he yelled. "Like a ghost!"

She laughed, because this was incredible. Absurd. Terrifyingly so. "Well what did you think I'd look like? Marilyn Monroe?"

He laughed and ran the distance to her. "How did you get here?" he asked, helping her up.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "Damn, you're a sight for sore eyes. What's going on? I mean-- you must have been going crazy."

He looked at her with a bit of surprise in his eyes. "Well, we need to talk about that. But first let's get you in the car, okay?"

"Okay-- what, what happened, Mulder?" she asked as they walked back toward the car together.

"What do you remember from that night on the bridge in Pennsylvania?"

"What bridge? I was driving to Skyland Mountain when I was driven off the road and kidnapped by these-- well, you know who. Them. I was drug off to God knows where. They dyed my hair, Mulder, they held me down and did that. Thank God nothing else happened. I mean, Mulder--"

"So you were never there?" he asked.

"No," Scully said, noticing the other person in the car. "Who's the Steve Buscemi lookalike in the car?"

"His name is Wesley Richardson and he's done a lot to help find you, so be polite, okay? Even though he looks like he's about ready to go into the woodchipper."

"What, did Skinner assign you another Krycek in my absence?"

"Skinner didn't have to assign me anyone. I found you in Pennsylvania near Ruskin Dam. You didn't remember anything about that night. No one did. So-- life went on."

"You found me?" Scully asked as he opened the door to the backseat of the car.

"Yes. At least that's what I thought. Oh by the way, Special Agent Dana Scully, meet Dr. Wesley Richardson. Dr. Richardson, this is Agent Scully."

"We've met," Scully said in a flat voice.

"Oh," Mulder said, turning a gaze of pure fire on Richardson. The man shrank away.

"I assume our-- impromptu partnership-- is over," he managed to say finally. "You've found Dr. Scully, and I have a daughter to worry about as well as my own life."

Mulder looked over at Scully, a sort of pleading in his eyes. She shook her head almost in disbelief, then shut her eyes and nodded.

"Richardson, I'll take you back to Charleston. It'll be over and we won't need to talk or see each other again. Give my best to Amy, she's a good kid. I hope that you get out of all this okay," Mulder said. Richardson looked back at Scully with a little apprehension, then nodded.

"Mulder, what do you mean you found me in Pennsylvania? I know your friend here was in the South somewhere, Alabama or Louisiana and I have NO clue where we are now but I don't think I ever got anywhere close to Pennsylvania," Scully said.

"I think she's a clone," Mulder said. "It's a possibility she's someone they hired to look just like you, but she's too perfect. The mannerisms, the memories, everything. I don't really think she's our enemy, Scully."

"She?"

"You. A woman who looks, acts, and is exactly like you, Scully."

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I am the girl you know-- I lie, I lie and lie-- I'm Miss World, somebody kill me Kill me pills-- No one cares, my friends My friend-- I'm Miss World, watch me break and watch me burn No one is listening, my friend?" --Hole, "Miss World"

**Chapter Ten**   
**Scully's Apartment**   
**9:15 PM**

"Hath not a clone eyes? Hath not a clone hands, organs, dimensions, senses-- whatever? If you prick me, do I not bleed-- red? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" Scully-- or at least, that was the best name that she had-- asked her apartment drunkenly. Upon the discovery she was in fact NOT Dana Scully, she had calmly stalked to a liquor store, bought a bottle of rum, some tequila, and a six pack and proceeded to return to her apartment to drink as much of it as she could bear. In between she had mused on new names for herself.

"Ima Clonazi," she laughed. "No, no, Faux Scully. Hmm, maybe Freak of Nature? Perversion of Science?"

Her drunken reverie was abruptly interrupted by the sound of her phone. "Ooh! Mis'ry loves comp'ny!" she said, swaggering to the phone. "Shcully."

"Dana, it's Mom. Are you all right?"

"I'm jusht peachy, Mom. Dapper. Fit as a fiddle."

"Have you been drinking? You sound drunk."

"I only had a little bit!" Scully said, trying to sound sober. "Mom, I need you to come over, okay? Please? I had a bad day, and it's very important."

"All right, Dana. Don't drink anything else before I get there, okay?" Margaret Scully's voice was dripping with concern. Scully nodded, then realized her mother-- or the real Scully's mother-- couldn't see her.

"Okay. I love you, Mom," Scully said, hanging up. "Shit. Now I gotta tell her I'm a clone and I don't know where my twin is. I need something to drink--"

The phone rang again. "Yello, Scully here," she said.

"Agent Scully, this is Nadia Walters."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about your daughter. I tried to find her, but your asshole husband blew up the one friend I had while I tried to do it. I can't help you any more. I'm a clone anyway. But didn't you know that?"

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"I did. My husband helped implant your-- the real Agent Scully's memories into you. I'm sorry. I want-- I want to help you."

"How's you gonna do that? You doan know nothin' and your husband's one of them."

"I overheard a conversation. They're going to offer you a false deal claim they'll do what you want and even give you Jessica if you stay quiet. Don't believe it. They intend to eliminate you and they'll use any means necessary. They may even use someone you trust--"

Scully laughed. Her intoxication had pushed all semblance of tact from her mind. "Listen lady, I don't know if your husband knows it-- but I don't trust anyone anyway. Not even myself. So thanks for your help but I'll do fine on my own. Okay?"

She slammed the phone down. "Fucking do-gooders, never help me 'til it's too late-- now I needed a drink, didn't I?"

The evil phone rang again. "DAMMIT!" she swore at it. Then she picked up. "Look, I'm drunk and I don't want to talk right now, call back tomorrow!" she shouted into the receiver.

"Scully-- or-- well. It's me," a familiar-- hell, it was her own voice- said softly over the phone lines. "I think we need to talk."

The clone nodded numbly. Up until that moment she was still able to think that there might be a chance that she was wrong, that she wasn't a clone. But this-- this was undeniable proof to her.

"Yes, yes we do."

For her part the real Scully was shocked. It was one thing to hear about it but quite another to listen to someone scream at you with your own voice.

"Mulder and I are about 250 miles away from DC right now. Stay where you are, and we'll be there in a few hours. Okay?"

"Okay." The clone hung up the phone. Dammit, she was starting to feel sober again. The phone rang again hopefully for the last time.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Ok, we'll deal. Meet me in front of the Smithsonian Metro Station in an hour." Walters's voice came through the line.

"For Jessica and my protection?" She was glad she had sobered up a little now.

"Yes, yes, everything," Walters replied.

"I'll be there." She hung up the phone. The warnings of Nadia Walters rang in her ears. She'd also promised the other Scully that she'd stay put. But this was more important. A young woman's life was at stake. She had to do it.

She was still tipsy and thus had to call a taxi. Driving would not be a good idea.

* * *

 

Somewhere near Clarksburg, WV

Mulder was quiet. He had not said a word in over 45 minutes. Every once in a while she would see him glance in the rear view mirror to look at her. However, he looked away whenever she tried to meet his eyes. For his part Richardson was looking decidedly uncomfortable about being in her presence. Scully stared out the window, pretending she was halfway interested in the scenery.

The wet hospital gown was annoying to say the least and she felt half-naked. Who wouldn't she kill right now for a pair of jeans and a comfortable shirt? The phone call had been odd and suddenly she was seized with a need to know as much about this mystery woman as possible. To know how Mulder found out.

"How did you know she wasn't me?" Scully asked suddenly.

"We'll talk about it later, Scully," Mulder said. He glanced into the rear view mirror and then at Richardson hoping that his message of 'not around Mr. Weasel' got through.

No such luck-- a month or so of being kept God knows where was quite enough to put Scully in a bad mood. Her questions there had been met with silence-- or worse. Details and information about where she had been and what had been done to her were already fading into the fog of memory. She was sick of not getting answers and she was going to get some right now. At least she was going to find out how Mulder had gotten himself involved with someone like Richardson.

Her memory of meeting Richardson was almost gone but she did remember being forced out of a van and seeing him as she was dragged down a hallway. Even that flash of realization was starting to fade.

She shook her head. "Stop the car, Mulder."

"We have to reach DC in time," he protested.

"Stop the car," she repeated-- demanded. Her blue eyes dared him to keep driving.

The car stopped. Dammit. She hated being weak and she couldn't even step outside to have a conversation with Mulder right now. Her legs wouldn't hold her and she realized it as she was about to open the car door. She held back tears of frustration. She looked down at her fingernails intently. When had they become so short?

"Can you step outside Richardson?" Mulder asked, realizing that Scully wanted to talk privately.

Richardson looked at him strangely but then nodded. The rain had stopped and he needed to stretch his legs. After he left, Mulder opened his door and changed seats to sit next to Scully.

"I couldn't talk with him around," he said by way of apology.

"How did you find out, Mulder?" Scully asked simply.

Mulder took a breath and began. He told her about Nadia and her daughter, the file, how he found out, meeting Amy and Richardson, all the way up to the present. He did however leave out the part about Daisy-- that was too bizarre.

Scully sat silent for a few moments, stunned. "Why did they let me go?"

"I can only guess that I got too close...or maybe..." His eyes widened with realization. "She figured it out."

"What?" Scully asked.

"The clone! We've got to get to her before they do. Otherwise they'll make her disappear."

"She's hard and damming evidence of their crimes," Scully said, realizing what he was thinking.

"She's the proof of their existence. This could bring them down."

"If we get to her first," Scully reminded him. She would love to take them down and make sure they didn't do what they've done to her to anyone else.

Mulder squeezed her hand gently and then opened the car door.

"Richardson, we're leaving."

"About time," he answered, standing up and brushing himself off.

Richardson sat back down. Mulder started driving again and dropped the bombshell. "There's been a change of plans. You're going into the Witness Protection Program. We've realized that the minute you leave us your life will be in danger. We need you to testify in a trial."

"What trial?" Richardson asked nervously.

"One which will bring the men you work for to justice," Mulder answered.

"They'll kill me!" Richardson protested.

"They're going to kill you anyway, *Doctor* Richardson. If you testify against them, I promise you and your daughter will remain safe."

Scully looked at him through the rear view mirror. He couldn't make a promise like that but she didn't call him on it. She leaned forward slightly.

"It's a way to make amends for your crimes," she chimed in.

Richardson nodded slightly. He really didn't have a choice in the matter.

* * *

 

Smithsonian Metro Stop   
10:30 PM

She walked out of the metro station and looked around for Walters. There, there he was. He smiled grimly as she walked up to him.

"Hello, 2Dana."

"What the hell did you call me?" she asked. She wasn't raving drunk anymore, but there was still plenty of alcohol in her system.

"That's your official name, 2Dana."

She thought for a few seconds.

"You have a deal for me?" She looked straight at him with a frozen stare.

"You won't talk?" Walters asked.

Dana-- 2Dana, whatever-- lifted an eyebrow. "Would anyone believe me?" she asked. "I won't talk. Where do you have your kid stashed, Walters? And who gave me a ridiculous name like 2Dana?"

"California. She's in a warehouse right past the Grapevine in California under the name of the dummy corporation Spitzer Frozen Foods. As for your second question-- didn't you ever read Neuromancer?" Walters asked. She rolled her eyes.

"Okay, clever. But who the hell goes walking around with a name like 2Dana Scully?" she asked acidly.

"Well we didn't exactly intend for you to go walking around--"

She never would know what exactly he'd said that clued her into it, but she ducked just as the shot rang out and quickly as her somewhat drunken reflexes would allow and pushed Walters over and out of her way.

"Hey!" he screamed. "Thief! Police! You stole my wallet! Stop her!"

2Dana (it would serve as a name, she decided, until she figured out a better one) ran. She simply ran into the metro station as fast as she could not even pausing to buy a ticket, just jumping the turnstiles. For one of the few times in her doomed existence she was lucky, because the metro was there, and the cop who usually sat there had run upstairs because of the shot. She ran onto the train, feeling the adrenaline as the doors shut and the train zoomed off.

"California. Of course she can't just be stashed somewhere nearby. I have to go to California," she muttered to herself. She looked at the map as the metro moved to a stop. No one got on. And this was the blue line. She could get to National and run with it from there. Of course, there was the issue about meeting Mulder and Scully. Staying on the metro was risky, too. They knew she was there. Someone would be waiting at National and she did go under the Pentagon--

"Screw it. I can make it," she said. "I'll just call them from the airport."

She did not allow herself to relax through the whole trip, looking up and down, around and around. She could do this. Just stay calm and it could all work out nicely.

"National Airport," the metro driver called an eternity later. 2Dana did not even pause past the "doors opening" announcement. She ran as fast as she could, hoping against hope she wasn't caught.

A nondescript young man in a Navy uniform saw her pass by and calmly dialed a number at a pay phone.

"Hello? Yes. It's me. She's been spotted at National. Do you want me to bring her in? No? But, sir. But-- I understand. Perfectly. Yes. We won't lay a finger on her."

He hung up and looked at the lithe redhead, quietly ordering duplicate sets of tickets to escape. "Hope you enjoy California, 2Dana, because you'll be buried there," he murmured before walking away from the terminal.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be peace in the valley tomorrow-- 'Cuz tonight she's gonna blow it all away-- --A3, "Peace In The Valley"

**Chapter Eleven**   
**Scully's Apartment**   
**4:05 AM**

The door was unlocked, which made both Mulder and Scully very nervous. They had stashed Richardson at an FBI safehouse with all sorts of orders and contacts. Fortunately it had been nearly three in the morning and no one was going to do anything until seven or eight. Scully had not looked overly impressive but at least she'd been standing and sort of walking.

"She wouldn't have left it unlocked, would she?" Scully asked, referring to her clone.

"Well, would you?" Mulder replied.

"No, but I don't know her."

Mulder laughed grimly. "Scully, she **is** you."

"No," Scully replied. "She's a copy. And besides-- shit!"

The apartment wasn't exactly trashed but someone had definitely gone through it. That much was obvious. Scully groaned.

"What the hell happened here?" she asked aloud to no one in general. Something rustled on the couch. Mulder pulled his gun.

"Federal agent, don't move!" he shouted.

"Fox?" a faint voice asked. Margaret Scully's head peeked up over the rim of the couch.

Scully let out a breath in shock. "Mom? What are you doing here?"

"Dana, where have you BEEN? I've been here since ten o'clock waiting for you. What happened?" Maggie asked, sitting up and staring at Scully. "My God, Dana, did you go to the hospital? What on earth?"

"Mom, there's a lot to tell you. When you did you talk to me last?" Scully asked.

"Nine fifteen," Maggie said quizzically. "Why?"

"And when you got here at ten, there was no one here."

"Not a soul."

"Did the apartment look like this?" Scully asked, wobbling a bit. Mulder put his arm around her waist and helped her to the couch. Maggie's eyes widened in maternal horror as she noticed what state her daughter was in.

"You're soaking wet! And your hair! Dana, tell me what's going on immediately!"

Scully sighed. "Mom, you didn't talk to me tonight. Or for the past month. The woman who claimed to be Dana Scully was a clone."

Maggie's jaw dropped. She didn't say anything for a long time. Finally she began speaking in a shaky voice.

"Clone? You mean, she was just pretending to be you?" Maggie asked, her eyes wild with confusion.

"I don't think she knew, Mom. I think she truly believed she was me. She's in trouble, Mom," Scully said. The phone rang, shrill-pitched. Mulder reached it first.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"2Dana," Scully's voice informed him. "Hey. Can't talk long, just got off the plane and intend to do some driving."

"Where are you? Why didn't you stay?"

"They offered me safety and Jessica. A deal, Mulder. I wanted to help that girl. So I went like a dummy. I got shot at. I decided it was time to seek safer harbors. Is Mom there? And-- her?"

"They're both here, Dana, er, Scully, er, you have to tell me where you are."

"On an unsecured line? Mulder, you're nuts," the clone told him. "All I can tell you is that I should reach my destination in about sixteen hours. Catch me if you can."

"Help us find you," Mulder pleaded. "You have to. We can bring the men down who did this. Please--"

"You can find it in your freezer section, Mulder," she replied cryptically. "Centrally located out west. Like, totally, you dig?"

Her ghastly attempt at a Valley girl accent was Mulder's only clue, so he made a wild stab at it.

"California?"

"Gag me with a spoon," 2Dana replied. "Totally check out the freezer, y'dig? Gotta go. Hope to see you there."

She hung up. Maggie and the original Scully looked at him in confusion.

"Where is she?" Scully asked.

"An airport somewhere, or at least that's what she told me. She sounds tired and terrified and determined. She's going after Jessica, Scully."

"Why?" Scully asked. "Is she absolutely crazy?"

"I have no idea. She has her own motivations and I think the driving one is to the stay alive. But she's also got your notions of justice, you know. You think you're up for a trip to California, Scully?"

"Fox, Dana can barely stand let alone take a trip to California to chase after her clone," Maggie said. "You're transparent."

"We have sixteen hours," Mulder replied. "A flight to California will take at least six, closer to nine."

Scully yawned. "Could I sleep a few of them? Or take a shower? I want to go-- I have to go. But I think I'm hungry and cold and dirty right now."

"Yes you are. Come on, Dana, we'll get you fixed up, okay, honey?" Maggie asked, shooting a 'don't-you-dare-interfere' glare Mulder's way. He nodded carefully. In fact, that couch was looking terribly comfortable at the moment.

But then Mulder remembered the other part of the clone's message, about the freezer. He walked to the freezer and opened it up. All that was in there were a few lite frozen dinners. After rolling his eyes over the thought of Scully needing a *lite* dinner, he took all of them out, examining them for anything. He tore them open, leaving a terrible mess. Nothing.

Then he looked at the back.

_Problems with our product? Call us toll-free, 8-6 PM EST, at 1-800- SPITZER, or write and send the defective product to 1051 Corporate Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90514._

Spitzer? That was the only possible clue in the entire dinner. Mulder considered his options and then went to the phone. The Gunmen could help him find out if there was anything amiss with the good people of Spitzer Frozen Foods. He dialed.

"Frohike? Wake up," he said. "I need your help. I know what time it is. I've been awake all night. Look up Spitzer Frozen Foods for me. Anything on Spitzer Foods. Who owns them, where their warehouses are located-- particularly ones in Southern California. Also look to see if there's any connection to the military-industrial complex. If you do it, you remember my copy of Naughty Sorority Sisters? It's yours. And if you get this done in less than four hours, I'll give you my copy of Rock and Roll Redheads in Outer Space. Yeah, that one. Thanks, Frohike."

He left the dinners on the table and went over to the couch, just intending to sit down for a minute. Instead, he was out cold in about five seconds flat. Maggie, who had just finished making her daughter lay down under great protest looked at the sleeping FBI agent and shook her head.

"Apparently they've got a little downtime in that sixteen hours," she murmured.

* * *

 

Somewhere in Texas

"Landed in Houston, got lost. Driving over to Austin. Take a plane to Vegas. Drive to California," 2Dana-- she was starting to hate the name with a passion-- chanted to herself. "Why don't I just call myself Kate? I like my middle name okay. Katherine Scully. Kate Scully. Like on that episode of Star Trek where Riker meets his clone and they decide the clone is going to be Tom Riker and Riker will stay Wil Riker. I could be Kate Scully, and is this babbling to keep myself awake? Cuz I can't go to sleep, the bad people will get me."

She growled and turned on the radio. Country music twanged and blared out at her. "Of course. I forgot, I'm in Texas," she muttered. "Stupid country radio."

She gave the knob a good wrench, and after finding two Spanish and two country stations, she found an oldies station playing some old- fashioned rock and roll. Chuck Berry, wasn't it?

"Go, Johnny, go go, Johnny B. Goode--" she sang to the music. "Go, Katie, go, go. 2Dana Kate Scully."

She groaned a little at that and hoped that she could find a place to get coffee soon. Staying awake was getting harder and harder and harder. Soon she'd forget why she was doing this and then, boom. She might as well give up there.

Aretha Franklin's brassy voice suddenly squawked out of the speakers of the car. "What you want, baby I got it, what you need, you know I got it-- all I'm askin' is for a little RESPECT--"

2Dana, or maybe Kate, grinned wearily and drove down the flat Texas highways to the music.

* * *

 

Scully's Apartment

"NO! Get away from me! You're with them!" Scully screamed. Suddenly she was back in the hospital and she couldn't move her hands and there were people surrounding her and--

The noise woke up Mulder. His eyes shot open and he practically leapt off the couch. The screams were coming from Scully's bedroom. They were enough to turn his blood to ice. His heart raced as he stood near her door and listened for a few seconds. He didn't hear anyone else in there. He relaxed a bit and slowly opened her door.

She lay in bed, her eyes shut tightly and her arms at her sides. Her wrists appeared to be stuck in place. She would try to move them, get a few inches and then give up. Her legs kicked out, almost as if she was trying to fight off invisible assailants.

Seeing her like this made his stomach twist. He debated with himself whether or not to wake her up. On the one hand it would stop her screams. On the other, it might embarrass her that he had seen her in the full throes of a horrific nightmare.

"Scully?" he whispered, keeping his distance. He didn't want to be accidentally kicked.

She sat up with a start and then let out a deep breath. Her breathing slowed down as she looked at her surroundings. > She repeated the fact to herself, and it did manage to calm her.

"I'm fine," she answered after a few seconds.

He walked right up to the bed. His mind worked overtime trying to think of a good excuse for him to be in her bedroom. It was seven forty in the morning. Would that be late enough to wake up?

"I'm sorry if I woke you. I just can't believe you're back," he said honestly, hoping that it would be a good enough reason.

She smiled slightly as she reached out and grabbed his hand. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight in the morning. We have to be in California by eight tonight."

"Where did Mom go?"

"I was sleeping. I guess she must have left," he admitted.

"Have you heard anything from the Gunmen yet?" She'd heard that conversation.

"It's only been four hours Scully. I'm sure they'll call soon."

"Okay, well I'm still tired...."

"Go back to sleep. I'll be up and I'll wake you the minute they call." He gave her hand a squeeze and then let go.

Scully yawned in reply and was soon asleep. Mulder resisted the urge to sit by her bed and watch over her. He closed the door softly behind him.

* * *

 

Somewhere in Texas

"Well you don't know what we can find... why don't you let me take you little girl on a magic carpet ride?" 2Dana, or Kate as she was now calling herself sang off-key to the music. Her hands hit the steering wheel in time to the beat. Anything to stay awake.

Up ahead she could see an overpass and was suddenly seized with the desire to ram the car into the concrete railing. She moved the car to the side of the road and put it into park.

"I don't believe this! I don't fucking believe this! They're still trying to kill me!"

She closed her eyes, trying to think of a plan. The answer came quickly and made her wonder why she didn't think of it before. "I'll remove the implant." She could feel a tiny bump just below the skin of the back of her neck.

A few miles down the road she saw a sign for the town of Ennis. After entering the town she spotted a small family owned eatery.

The smell of fresh pancakes and hot coffee hit her the minute she opened the door. A young dark-haired woman ran around serving people and filling up cups. She smiled broadly when Kate entered.

"Hi! Just sit down wherever you'd like."

Kate took a seat near the window and looked down at the silverware. Perhaps a steak knife would be sharp enough. Unfortunately, there was only a regular knife at the table.

"Can I get you some coffee?" the woman asked in a heavily accented voice.

"Yes, black, two sugars. I'll have a steak and eggs." She needed that knife.

The waitress looked at her in surprise but then smiled. "Coming right up."

Once the waitress left, Kate opened her handbag. She put the chosen items in the pocket of her suit jacket.

The coffee was very good actually. Kate tried very hard to avoid looking at the steak knife as it was placed next to her. She took another sip of her coffee to steel herself, made sure the waitress was busy and pocketed the knife.

Casually, she stood up and walked to the ladies room. She was assailed by memories of a cancer she never had and long nights of pain which never happened to her. > She nodded and pulled the items out of her pocket, laying them neatly near the sink. Then she removed her jacket and blouse, not wanting them to get bloody. She hung them on the door handle and made sure the door was locked.

Then she turned around and angled the compact so that she could see the back of her neck in the larger mirror on the wall. She could hear her heart pounding and took another deep breath. She grabbed the knife, dabbed it with the perfume-- she was going to at least attempt this with a sterile instrument-- and held it over the back of her neck. Her hand shook and she bit her lip, prepared for the pain.

The absurdity of performing an operation in a restaurant bathroom did not escape her. The weak try at humor did not help -- her hand was still shaking and her head was starting to throb.

Fortunately the knife's tip was sharp. A small slice was all that was needed, but it hurt. The blade ripped across nerve endings, and she bit her lip harder. Luckily, there's less bleeding from a neck wound than say a sliced finger, but that fact didn't make the pain any less. She put the knife down and took hold of the tweezers. She said a silent prayer as she probed the cut for the tiny implant. The sharp-edged tweezers caused her vision to go blurry. Only sheer willpower let her continue the search. Her fingers became slick with blood but finally she found the implant and pulled it out. She stared at it curiously. How could something so small cause so many problems?

* * *

 

Location Unknown

"Shit, we lost her." The technician took off his headphones and threw them down angrily.

"What do you mean we lost her?" a cool voice asked.

"I mean information was flowing in and out of the computer and now it's not." He gestured towards the screen, which was now blank.

"How could this be?" The woman walked over to the computer and started entering commands, opening windows... nothing.

"She must have removed the implant," he realized and slammed his fist on the desk.

"We're so screwed," the woman answered, sitting down and trying to pretend that they did not just lose 2Dana.

"How could this have happened?" she asked weakly while running down a list of options in her mind.

"I thought accessing the cancer memories might cause her to not do it... she was obviously more determined than I thought."

The woman turned to glare at him. "I'm not taking the blame for this! It's your fault."

"Fine, I'll take the blame. Have another death on your hands," he said as he pushed away from the desk.

"You think they'd kill you over this?" Was that concern in her voice?

"Maybe," although he doubted it.

"I'll say there was a computer malfunction."

The door opened and Walters walked in.

"Sir, there was a computer malfunction and we lost her," she explained.

"I know where she's going. California, here she comes," Walters answered.

"Sir far be it from me to question you, but why did you tell her?" the technician asked.

Walters glared at him. "She wasn't supposed to have lived beyond last night-- the sniper missed! Hollow out a dime, my ass. So we have to clean up the mess."

The technician shrunk back, and the woman pretended to be very interested in her fingernails.

Walters took a deep breath and forced himself to smile. "Call in Megan's team, she'll handle the clean-up. Tell her to also be on the lookout for Agents Mulder and Scully."

The technician nodded.

"Oh and tell her, if she sees them, to detain them by any means necessary." Walters decided. Perhaps he could find some good in this after all.

"Sir, how can you be sure that Megan will succeed?" the woman asked as Walters headed for the door.

"Because if she doesn't, she knows what will happen." Walters walked out of the room.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air." --Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus"

**Chapter Twelve**   
**Austin Airport**

"I know that my ID says Dana Scully, honey darlin," Kate said with a heavy faked drawl. "But I told you. I use my middle name Kate, and I just got married and I haven't gotten to the DMV yet, bein' on vacation and all."

"So--"

"I want Katie Miller on the ticket, darlin," Kate said. "Could you do that for me?"

The ticket clerk just blinked and nodded. "Sure."

Thank God Southwest Airlines was being so sweet. She'd have to commend this kid in a letter or something. She decided to bag Vegas and go to Sacramento instead. Driving across the desert would be a stupid thing to do, and there wouldn't be traffic to worry over, not on the Five South. Just boring, flat fields and trucks barreling down the freeway. She had vivid memories of the boredom from many a family vacation in the car.

The clerk gave her the one-way ticket to Sacramento without any more fuss, and Kate Scully, no, Katie Miller, walked through the airport as differently from her usual stride as she could. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. This would not do. Katie Miller looked identical to a travelworn Dana Scully. Of course, she didn't have much time, but she pulled open her little travel bag and looked for what she could do. She pulled out some brushes, but all of her make-up was just wrong.

"Darlin," she said to the girl next to her. "I hate to ask, but could I borrow some make-up?"

"Sure," the girl replied. Kate wondered where she'd picked up this new 'darlin' thing. She shrugged and went after her obnoxiously resistant hair, teasing it up a bit until it didn't resemble her usual FBI pageboy any more. Then she washed her face and applied some of the girl's makeup. Then she regarded herself in the mirror.

"Eh. I look the same, but at least I'm making an effort," Kate said. A wicked thought crossed her mind, and she hurried back to the terminal.

When Katie Miller boarded the plane, she was wearing an absolutely blatant "Don't Mess With Texas" t-shirt and a little cowboy hat. The woman sitting next to her looked a little surprised, but otherwise, it was all for the good.

"Next stop, Sacramento," she murmured.

* * *

 

Scully's Apartment

"Frohike, dammit," Mulder snapped at the phone as Scully walked out of her bathroom, wearing only a towel. "Can't you do any better?"

"Mulder, what am I supposed to do? Give you the address to the secret evil labs of Spitzer Frozen Foods, makers of the delicious Macho Man meals? While they are owned by a company involved in the defense industry, surprise surprise, they're pretty clean. The only warehouse facilities in southern California is an hour or so past LA, right when you get into the Central Valley," Frohike explained. "Hey, Mulder. If you end up with two of the lovely Agent Scully, remember your friends, okay?"

"In your dreams, Frohike," Mulder replied, eyes widening to see his partner in a towel. He quickly hung up. "Need help?"

"No, actually, I'm okay," Scully replied dryly. "I tend to walk around like this in my own apartment. So where are we going?"

"LA, for lack of a better destination. I hope you like it there. Movie stars and swimming pools and your clone somewhere. Maybe she's decided to become a starlet."

Scully nodded and wandered back into her bedroom. Mulder abruptly sat down on the couch and looked at the wall. Scully didn't seem to notice his fazed behavior.

"Mulder, if I confess something to you, would you not get emotional?" she called from the bedroom.

Mulder paused. "What?"

"I don't want to be friends with my clones. In fact I don't really have any tender feelings toward her," Scully said. "The bitch stole my life, Mulder. She stole my identity. She took it from me, and I want it back!"

It wasn't what Mulder expected from his generally forgiving partner. He knew she was a tough cookie, but she was usually kinder. He figured this sort of conversation was necessary face to face.

"Are you decent?" he asked warily.

"I'm in a robe," Scully replied. Mulder stood up and walked to his partner's room and sat down on the bed. Scully looked furious. She still wasn't completely steady on her feet, but the time without drugs and restraints had already improved her in that realm. Her eyes were flashing as she rummaged through her closet.

"All right," he said. "The bitch stole your life."

"Aren't you going to give me the 'but she was unaware' spiel?" Scully asked, grabbing things from her closet. "God damn her, she took some of my favorite clothes! I suppose that would follow--"

"Well I can't argue with the truth. She stole your life. She didn't know. Those are the facts," Mulder stated calmly, playing the psychologist. "So, you don't want to be her friend?"

"No, I don't!" Scully snapped, pulling out a suit she hadn't seen before and looking at it in disgust. "Ooh, don't we have taste-- Donna Karan. Was her mission to take over my life and max out my credit card? It's just so hard-- we've had to deal with so much tragedy and trouble. And some things just should not be coped with. Sometimes you have to fight."

"Do you wonder what her life has been?" Mulder asked. "My guess is she was vat-grown, Scully. No childhood. Three years old, tops. Given someone else's identity, while already being another woman's clone. Created to be murdered. Given the biggest role to play in life's little melodrama, and then she finds out the truth. She's not real."

Scully sighed and looked at her partner. He was trying very hard not to get overly upset about the robe and the situation.

"I know. She's alone. At least I have you."

He smiled and gave her a quick hug. "You've got me as long as you can put up with me, Scully. Now, hurry up and get dressed."

He left the room, and went back to considering what exactly he and Scully were going to do. Because all the options seemed bad and they were running out of time. Not to mention all the other complications that always appeared in their lives.

* * *

"Fuck you, Agent Mulder!" Megan screamed, kicking the punching bag again. "You and that weasel-ass guy! You! Think! You! Can! Beat! Me?" Each word was punctuated by a kick or punch. "You wish!"

"MEGAN!" someone screamed. Megan whirled around, fists ready.

"What?" she snapped.

"We've got an assignment, bitch," the someone said. "You can finally kick your Agent Mulder's ass."

"About god-damned, son of a bitch time!" Megan said, climbing out of the ring. "Where are we going?"

"A nice little compound north of Los Angeles."

"Oh, okay. Should I, like, practice my, you know, like, surfer accent, dude?" Megan asked, twirling her hair vapidly and faking gum-chewing. The other young woman looked at her and shook her head.

"Dude," the operative replied.

"DUDE!" Megan said harshly.

"DUDE!!" the operative replied firmly. They looked at each other and burst into laughter.

"Oh, okay," Megan said. "I get you, dude. Whatever. I'll be ready in half an hour. No, make it forty-five minutes. I'm going to dress up for our friend Mr. Special Agent Fox Mulder."

"You've got issues with that man I do not understand, Meg," the operative replied. "Do what you want, okay?"

"I always do," Megan said calmly, flipping her black braid back and heading for the shower. "Dude."

The operative chuckled and walked out of the large building where Megan had been working. She grinned at Walters as she passed by.

"Something funny?" he asked.

"Meggers," the young woman said. "She's busting at the seams to destroy Mulder. I hope you don't care if he gets mangled or dead."

"No one cares. Just make sure 2Dana is out of the picture, do you understand? Make sure Megan knows that's what we need done," Walters said. "And don't call her Meggers. She's a trained assassin and criminal. Meggers makes her sound like she's a sorority sister."

"Well, if you people hadn't interfered, God only knows where she'd be," the anonymous operative said. "By the way, sir, why Megan?"

"She's the sort no one cares about. In this business, soldier, we have two main sorts-- the sort no one cares about, and the sort people care too much about."

"Yessir," the operative answered solemnly. She didn't ask what sort she'd been-- she already knew.

Walters watched the young woman walk away and then calmly entered an office and picked up the phone. "Megan's team is on the job, folks."

"That's wonderful," a flat voice replied. "But what if 2Dana decides to go somewhere else-- like Montana? What if she stops being naive for five seconds?"

"We based her on someone who's stayed naive for years," Walters said. "I know her. She'll show."

"And if not?"

"We'll find her if it kills us," Walters replied. "What about Agents Mulder and Scully, anyway? How are they doing?"

"Clueless as ever. They may very well never find the warehouse. Though they've been given a few clues."

Walters sighed. "Did we really have to invite them to this party?" he asked wearily. "We all know how this particular story's going to end."

"Oh, but that's the entire point, Jim. Each story ends a little differently. That's why we keep playing. That's why they keep playing."

The phone was primly hung up, then, and Jim Walters sagged down wearily in his chair. "This whole thing gets stupider and stupider every fucking day. No one wants to just get things done. They have to screw around first! God."

Apparently, the Divine Master of the Universe wasn't listening to him, so after a few moments staring at the wall, Walters got up and started back at his work, wondering when he'd gotten so irritated and so tired of his life.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Heavy, heavy, heavy, hand and heart. We are at war, bitterly, bitterly at war." --Denise Levertov, "Tenebrae"

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Flight 2567**   
**En Route to LA**

Scully glanced at her watch and looked over at Mulder. He was fast asleep. She sighed and leaned back in her seat. He never had a problem sleeping on airplanes, while she had never quite gotten over her fear of flying or actually, crashing.

She closed her eyes. That didn't help. After waking up from her dream earlier, she had been unable to fall back asleep.

The stewardess pushed the drink cart up to her.

"Can I get you something to drink?" she asked sweetly.

"No-- yes, get me a-- no, never mind. Wait, yes, uh-- never mind. Thank you."

Scully privately cursed herself for the bout of indecisiveness. She was never this silly over something as banal as a drink. The stewardess merely regarded her with dull green eyes and moved on.

"Mulder?" she asked.

"Hmm?" He opened his eyes slightly. To say he wasn't sleeping well would be a major understatement.

"How did you know it wasn't me?" she asked. The question had been on her mind for a while.

"I just knew," he whispered, smiling slightly.

"No, really. If this woman was like me in every way, how were you so sure she was a clone?"

Reluctantly, he sat up. "It's hard to explain."

"Try me."

"You-- I mean she-- seemed different. I can't put it into words. It was as if something was missing... a spark, a certain fire. As crazy as this might sound-- there was something definitely different about her."

"Was it her soul?"

He looked down at her and smiled. "I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Do clones have souls?" Scully wondered aloud.

"That's a philosophical question, Agent Scully." He thought for a few moments. "I guess it depends on whether or not you think they're alive. And if they are alive...." He shrugged, "Perhaps it's not even being alive-- at least in a biological sense. There are people who believe that computers have souls. Perhaps a prerequisite to having a soul is the ability to think." The question perplexed him and he could not think of an answer.

"I think therefore I am," she whispered and looked up at him. After a few moments of silence, she spoke again. "I've been taught that every soul is unique. How does God view her, Mulder?"

He looked out the window. Whenever conversation turned to religion he usually tried to end it as quickly as possible. "I don't know." He hoped that would be the final word on the subject.

She nodded slightly, having known him long enough to recognize the signs that he wanted to finish a conversation.

"I hope we're not too late," she said vaguely.

He turned back towards her and gently held her hand. "We won't be," he said with a conviction he didn't really feel.

* * *

 

Location Unknown

"Okay team, in case you haven't heard, we've got an assignment."

"What is it, Meggers?" one of the men asked, snickering. The rest started to laugh but were quickly silenced by a glare.

"What did you just call me?" Cold dark eyes stared into hazel ones.

"Nothing Megan, sorry...I just heard..."

"You heard nothing. No one calls me Meggers-- no one." Her face was inches from his.

He nodded and lowered his head.

"Now, as I was saying it's become our responsibility to ensure the destruction of lab 3429ACLN."

"What the hell is that?" a voice asked from her team.

She regarded them with a tight-lipped smile. "I tell you what you need to know. And you don't. But rest assured, we do this right, or we come home on our shields. You got it?"

Twenty-five people nodded as one.

"Good." She limped over to a model. "Now I want explosives, here, here, here, and here." She pointed to the sections with her perfectly manicured nails.

"What if there's anyone inside? What if *they're* inside?" One of the women asked.

"We have our orders," Megan replied. Her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"Won't they be upset if we...?" the same woman asked.

"As I said, we have our orders and we leave in an hour." Megan turned and walked away.

* * *

 

South Interstate 5

"We were singing bye bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing-- this will be the day that I die-- this will be the day that I die--" Kate sang along to the radio. The landscape was boring, the trucks were boring, and there wasn't much else to think about considering her surroundings. She was an hour away from the warehouses, tops, and the diminishing miles were making her more and more edgy.

The rest of her life was the trouble. Questions popped up faster than flies on raw meat. Chief among them was what she was going to do. She didn't trust Walters' promise at all, but she had a feeling that Jessica Walters was there in the place he'd told her.

"I had a feeling," she murmured to herself. She was acting just like Mulder, going off on hints, hunches, and visions. Anyway it didn't matter now whether or not she were acting like Mulder. The die was cast, in her mind anyway. She was going to go into that warehouse and find out the truth. Then--

"Then," Kate said, drumming her fingertips on the steering wheel. "Everything changes. Courts. Labs. Tests. Depositions. All in the slim hope of justice for faceless men. The hope only of a hollow woman."

She had a vague vision of what would happen if she succeeded. It involved a lot of talk shows, panel discussions, and newspaper articles. Kate got a particular amusing image of herself, Mulder, and the other Scully on Jerry Springer.

What was stopping her from saving Jessica, and running off to Mexico? That would be the best plan, just run as fast as she could. Take a vacation from her paranoid science-fiction-turned-horror-flick life, try normality for a change? Kate paused a moment in her thoughts of escape and futures that hovered like phantasms.

There wasn't anything stopping her except herself. Except that personality grafted from another woman. Except that conviction that the right thing to do, the best thing to do, was to pursue justice at any cost. Kate couldn't help it. She would rely on her own strength to get her through. Still, the steep price of that justice rattled Kate a bit, and she fell silent as the radio blared on:

"And the three men I admire most, the father, son and Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast the day the music died. And they were singing--"

* * *

 

Somewhere in Los Angeles

"God damn, jack-hammering son of a bitch traffic!" Mulder screamed at the mass of cars that greeted them on the freeway. "I hate LA, I hate LA, I don't understand how **anyone**  could want to live here!"

Scully was quiet. Then again, she'd been quiet since their plane landed at LAX. Mulder glanced at her quickly and cursed himself for being such an ass. He was griping about traffic and she was dealing with heavy philosophical issues.

"Are you okay, Scully?" he asked quickly. She turned her head up at him and gave him a quick shadow of a grin.

"I'm fine, Mulder," she replied thoughtlessly.

"You'd say that if you were drowning, Scully," he replied, swerving to miss a fender bender. "I mean, what are you going to do after tonight?"

"I don't know," Scully replied. "I figure, well, everything changes. If we go public-- when we go public-- the media attention alone will be insane. Then there will be lab tests, court dates, I don't know what else. Not to mention the personal issues. Every time I look into the mirror after tonight I'll wonder which one of us is real? Who am I? There's a large body of philosophical work dedicated to personal identity, but it just doesn't suffice."

"Why not?"

"Because it's all a paradox. What is identity, anyway? Is it bodily? It is memory and character? If it's memory and character-- well, it's just a conflict wherever I look."

"But it's happened. And if we survive tonight, it'll be something to deal with on a concrete basis. I know you. You'll be able to handle it. Because you've got a soul most people would sell their firstborn for," Mulder said. "Hey, the traffic's improving!"

"Thanks, Mulder," Scully said. Their car slowly chugged through the crowded, cramped, and smoggy valleys of Los Angeles. "So where exactly are we going?"

"The Spitzer Frozen Food warehouses. That's the best lead we've got."

Scully didn't reply, just stared out at the window at the barren landscape that lay before them as they passed Los Angeles to Valencia to the Grapevine. Her thoughts were on the slim bit of red hair and blue eyes who was meandering down the same ribbon of black asphalt and their imminent meeting, ticking down inevitably and inexorably.

Like Fate. Like Death. Deadlines that couldn't be avoided.

* * *

 

Plumwood Road off North Five, CA

Megan viewed the warehouse with distaste. Bad enough it wasn't in an actual town. The trip from the small secret airfield east of Bakersfield had been quite an unrepeatable experience anyway.

"Okay, we've got maybe three hours max until our visitors come a knocking."

She stared straight ahead.

"Shouldn't we blow this place and get out of here then?" Andy, one of her men asked.

"Our orders are also to kill 2Dana. We have to wait for her."

"We could set the bomb to go at a certain point, you know. We don't have to be here. Or a guard could stay and get her when she comes here. We can leave."

"No, no we can't." Megan limped to the door.

"Megan, beating up Mulder isn't going to solve anything,"

"Uh huh." She wasn't really listening.

"This is petty! It's gotten many operatives into trouble and you know it. You're above this! You're better than this. Listen, if he's captured you can play with him then but this is too dangerous."

"So you say, but you don't understand the big picture."

"We can't risk it." He walked over to her.

"Andy, they tortured me for letting him go. I want him to feel what I felt."

"Megan." He reached out a hand to comfort her, but she slapped him away.

"He and his friend are responsible for this." She gestured at her leg.

"It won't make it better."

"You're wrong. It will." She loaded her gun, clicking it into place. "Don't worry, I won't kill him. But he might not be in very good shape when I'm done with him."

She blinked away a few rebellious tears and grinned into the distance.

"You'll discover, my dear Agent Mulder, the ins and out of excruciating pain, that in the hands of a master, it's an art," she whispered. "Andy."

"Yes?"

"We don't need the whole team here to blow the place up," she said. "Set up the explosives so that they can be triggered at my command. Leave me about five team members, for surveillance and control, and then get everyone the hell out of here."

"You're a good leader, Megan," Andy said. "Don't get yourself killed over that butt-jacking dick Mulder."

"I won't," Megan replied. "Go. I gave you an order."

He nodded, and started making the preparations for the job, noticing how bright and extraordinarily blue the California sky was during late afternoon. Vaguely, he checked his watch. 5:35 PM. It was going to be dark soon, and as he turned and faced the hills covered in brush so golden it looked like they were sand dunes or pictures, he realized the sun was already setting.

Then he set his face and got down to business.

* * *

Everything about travelling on South Five was designed to screw you out of money, Kate realized as she saw the gas prices. She looked at her watch-- Dana's watch, actually, her brother had given it to her as a birthday present, and she would probably have to surrender it back. It was 6:30, and she was about an hour from where she needed to be. With the sun setting, the broiling, impossible heat that had plagued her through the day was giving way to a definite chill.

She looked at the various fast food and trucker joints that were her choices and settled on Denny's. Liberating Jessica on an empty stomach just didn't appeal to her. So she walked in and seated herself at the counter. The waitress wasn't extraordinarily friendly, she just got the order with a cool efficiency. Kate was sure she had surprised the woman a little bit by ordering something other than a green salad. Well, she figured, green salad was just not the dinner of champions.

After laying check and tip on the table, Kate walked back to her rental. She performed a rudimentary check on the car for explosives-- she was fairly sure she wasn't being followed, but everyone knew where she was going.

"It's the moment of truth, Kate," she murmured as she started the car. "Do you go to the warehouse or do you take South Five into Mexico? It's your call, so what do you do?"

The answer wasn't immediate. For a good fifty-six minutes and thirty- nine seconds she had no answer, and merely drove, remembering to turn on her lights, use her signal when changing lanes, and heard the radio, though she couldn't remember what sort of station it was.

Then the sign came up. It was this exit, this was the town. Three quarters of a mile. One half mile. One quarter--

Kate again remembered her turn signal as she pulled off the exit. Even though she had removed the chip, she knew, almost instinctively, where to go. It was positively eerie. She turned left at the stop sign, down the lonely road to her destiny.

An operative watched her car drive by, then picked up his cel phone and called a number.

"2Dana has just been sighted. You were right, Megan, she went in the right direction," he said.

"Any sight of Mulder and Scully?"

"No," he replied. "Jerry hasn't called me yet."

"Do you have the road sign up? Those two won't be able to find this place without mass amounts of help. I know them," Megan said, with a bit of exasperation in her voice.

"Everything's ready, the party's all tidy, we're just waiting for the guests, Miss Meggers."

There was a cool silence over the line. "Sorry, boss," the operative said.

"Just remember that when I throw my next party, Benny," Megan replied, hanging up. Benny shuddered, and then his walkie-talkie crackled.

"Moose and Squirrel have been sighted. What do you know, they got off on the right exit," Jerry said.

"Hot damn. You call Megan and tell her, okay?" Benny said. "I just got in her bad graces."

"Meggers again?" Jerry asked wryly. "You really should know better, Ben. She's not playing right now, she will fully kick your ass."

"Thankfully, she has a better playmate to vent on this time," Ben replied.

* * *

 

In the tasteful dark blue Taurus, Mulder was explaining to Scully the whole experience he'd had with Daisy Hebert. Scully was giving him the look, the eyebrow, the mouth. It felt just like old times.

"You're kidding, right?" Scully asked incredulously. "Trailer trash goes postal?"

"She only looked like trailer trash. Actually, Daisy was quite beautiful, black hair, tall, flexible-- I think that if we meet again, though, I'll go hide in the nearest dark cave."

"Hmm-- she was really that angry?"

"Yeah," Mulder replied. "Where am I going?"

"According to the directions the Gunmen got us, it's about twenty-five miles down this road. Big complex, hard to miss. Lots of frozen stuff."

"Yeah-- frozen people, frozen assets, frozen fish, frozen head of Walt Disney--"

Scully looked up, startled. "Mulder, you are a weird, strange little man."

"No, I'm a weird, strange big man. Frohike's a weird, strange little man," Mulder corrected her. "Missed you."

"I know," she replied. "Think she's there, yet?"

"Don't know," Mulder replied. "What do you think?"

"Yeah, she's closer than we are," Scully said. "She's probably getting antsy."

The flat expanse of the Central Valley passed by, alfalfa and corn and spinach, as Mulder didn't respond. He didn't know what to say to her. Finally, as they passed their fifth field of strawberries, he leaned over and looked at her.

"I'm antsy, too," he said. "Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to make it out alive," he told her confidently.

"It's not us I'm worried about, Mulder."

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? --Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.
> 
> \--Wilfred Owen, "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

**Chapter Fourteen**

Kate drove down the road, noticing how the hills rose as she went further west. It had to be close. Her heart pounded furiously as she turned onto a side road off the highway. A few minutes later, another turn and this was it, her destination was a mile or so away. She jolted and bounced as the Taurus hit uneven gravel. What kind of company had an unpaved road to their main warehouse? Or a main warehouse complex in the middle of nowhere?

It was too soon for her when she reached a sign, which read "Spitzer Corporation: Frozen Food Division." Anxiously she turned into the long driveway and started driving towards the building.

More appropriately, the compound. A few smaller buildings flanked the large modern warehouse structure. But it appeared deserted. There were no cars, no signs of life. She stopped in front of the warehouse and her tires squealed on the sand.

"Dammit, this can't be right," she muttered and stepped out of the car. She slammed the car door and walked up to the entrance. The bay doors were padlocked and the one door that Scully saw was locked tighter than a drum. In fact, it didn't really look like a factory, just a bunch of warehouses. There were no phone or power lines running into it, and no parking lot. She was about to walk away when she heard it. A barely audible noise that she couldn't make out. It was too muffled.

Kate walked over and put her ear to the ground near the wall. The noise was louder. There was something underneath the building. Her eyes widened as she recognized the sound. It was crying.

* * *

"This can't be it," Scully said as they pulled into the complex. It appeared deserted. Maybe the clean up had already happened. "We're too late."

"No, look there's her car." Mulder pointed to a barely noticeable gray Ford Taurus.

"How do you know?" Scully asked.

"Who else would drive a car like that in a place like this? She's got your style."

Scully snorted.

"No, I would have rented a 4X4. I don't know what she was thinking. Maybe she's like **you**." Scully smiled slightly and opened the car door.

"She's not my clone," Mulder answered lightly.

Scully's smile disappeared and she looked down at the floor. "She won't be anything unless we find her."

He realized what he'd just said and grimaced.

"Sorry, that was insensitive."

She looked over at him -- did he just apologize to her? Miracles would never cease when Mulder was around.

"It's okay Mulder, really." She stepped out of the car and walked up to the entrance. He followed her. Gravel was murder on high heels.

"It's locked," she informed him. She held the large metal lock in her hands and examined it. "Not only that, but there is no way to open it. I see no sign of a keyhole or combination." She let the lock go and it clanged against the door.

"Is there another way in?" Mulder asked. "Are you really sure it isn't opening?"

"There should be. Maybe around on the side?"

"Wait," Mulder reached down to his ankle and took the small gun out of its holster.

"Who knows what could be lurking around here?" he explained, holding it out to her.

Their hands touched as she took the gun. She had been feeling naked without one. That bitch had even taken the spare she kept in her drawer. Their eyes met for a few seconds. She looked away abruptly and started around the building.

"Let's go find that entrance."

A few minutes later they reached a hidden door. Perhaps four feet high, not even technically a door. More like a sliding piece of the building. As Scully stepped up to it, it slid open automatically.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," she said as she chambered a bullet into the gun.

"Me too," Mulder said as he clicked off the safety. "Ladies first." He watched her as she went through the door.

She turned around and gave him a look. Then she ducked down and walked into the building, being very careful not to hit her head on the top of the door. The minute she went through the door, though, she heard a slide and click behind her.

"Scully!" Mulder yelled stepping up to the door and hoping it would open. It didn't. He examined the door with his hands, looking for a way to pry it open and had to admit defeat.

"Mulder!" On the other side of the door, she was mimicking his actions.

"I'm going to find another entrance!" he called through the door, unsure if she could hear him.

He walked cautiously around the building. The door incident put him on his guard. This was a trap, and they'd stupidly walked right into it. Perhaps Scully's clone wasn't even in the building.

Meanwhile, Scully banged on the door once more. It wouldn't budge. She sighed and turned around. She was in the middle of a hallway. She took a few experimental steps on the linoleum. Then she heard it, a soft sound coming from beneath her feet. Someone was in the building.

She started walking towards a faint light she saw at the end of the hallway. A hallway with many doors, all of them locked. Whatever was being produced here, it certainly wasn't chicken potpie.

Mulder reached the end of one side of the building, and was about to turn the corner when a fist from out of nowhere hit him on the side of his face. His gun was knocked out of his hand by a fast kick and he soon found himself on the ground.

He squinted against the setting sun and a blurry figure straddled him. Looking around he saw one well-shaped leg on either side of his chest.

"Hello again, Agent Mulder," a voice purred at him.

He recognized it and shivered.

"Daisy?" He whispered, praying that he was wrong. After that long rant in the laundry room, he never wanted to face her again. Yet here he was, his gun lying useless a few feet away. Even through her black outfit he could see well-defined muscles and the look in her eyes was of pure malice.

"Close enough," she answered. She held a gun and pointed it at him loosely. Aiming close enough to his head that he didn't dare try anything.

"So what brings you here, Agent Mulder?" she asked almost conversationally.

"I wanted to complain about the hair I found in my chicken pot pie."

She blinked. Her hand gripped the gun harder and now it didn't waver. Mulder knew he had to do something and so he grabbed her ankle with his hand, trying to pull her down. This made her angry. He was causing her pain without realizing it by trying to move her hurt leg too quickly.

In response, she brought her foot down hard on his other arm, digging her heel into his wrist. It had the desired effect. He yelped and immediately let go of her leg and cradled his hurt arm.

She kicked him in the side a few times, relishing his soft sounds of pain. Even better, one of those times she heard something crack. He wasn't as good at hiding his emotions as she.

"Have you ever been shot in the leg?" she asked sharply.

He nodded slowly, unsure of the right answer. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult and from his experience with broken ribs, he could tell it was going to be another few weeks with plastic wrapped around his body.

"Have you ever had someone push on your wound until you almost passed out from the pain? Because you were unable to stop someone from getting away with information?" Her voice became increasingly upset, the perfect mask of cool beginning to slip.

He shook his head slightly, his eyes fixated on the gun a foot or so away from his head.

"It's an agony I can't describe -- I have to show you."

His eyes widened and he tried to back away, still cradling his hurt wrist. She waved the gun vaguely, as if it was a child's toy, aiming alternately at his right and then his left thigh.

He heard the noise before he felt or even realized the effect. Felt nothing actually, could she have missed?

He reached down to wipe the sweat off his hands when he looked down and saw that his hand was now half red. At that moment, he felt the pain. It felt as if part of his thigh had been flayed, burned and cut into small pieces. Luckily, it didn't snap through any bones, but it was still painful. Blood seeped onto his pants, the hard ground and her high-heeled shoes.

He gasped and tried to get away from her, which was hard to do when only one leg was up to the task of movement.

Her hand went to her waist and she removed a hunting knife from its sheath. His eyes widened as it came closer to him. The flat edge gently scraped his gunshot wound.

Mulder hissed. "You don't want to do this...," he gasped out.

"Oh I do, I do..." she whispered in a voice that sent chills up his spine. The tip of the knife plunged into the wound.

God he actually whimpered. "I didn't shoot you!" he managed after a few moments to scream. She kept shifting in and out of focus.

"Do you think any of them would have cared if Dr. Wesley wanted information or to find someone? No, they gave a fuck all about him. You...you however are the reason why I was punished for failing. I have to take painkillers every morning just to get out of bed. I have a permanent limp because of you! It's all your fault!" She pushed the knife through layers of raw skin and muscle.

He screamed and each breath made his chest hurt. But it was nothing compared to the agony he felt from what she was doing with the knife. Tears streamed down his face and he bit his lip until a thin line of blood dripped down his chin.

Her wrist turned and the wound bled more. Then in one quick movement she pulled the knife out and lay it next to her on the ground. He screamed hoarsely, pain was rendering him speechless.

Dark eyes looked at him with very little expression. Almost as if considering something she stopped momentarily. He could hear himself breathe, short and shallow.

Perfectly manicured nails reached for his thigh, scraping his skin. One finger entered the wound and swirled around a bit. Mulder was unable to stop himself from screaming. His entire world shrunk to the sensations caused by her probing finger. Screams broke off into unrecognizable whimpers and words. His unhurt hand clenched and unclenched. Only one thought came through the haze: he had to stop her.

He struck out violently, but was unable to connect with any part of her body. Too weak to do any real damage. He stared up at her with unfocused eyes pleading with her to stop. He was truly frightened and the blood loss was starting to affect him.

Shit, he thought to himself, suddenly realizing that there was a chance he could be crippled by this, if not killed afterwards. He blanked out for a few seconds...five...ten....

She inserted another finger and pulled the wound apart. Screaming was beyond his control, his body responded on autopilot, his mind trying to escape.

She picked up the knife again, brandishing it at him, it glittered with blood and the setting sun. His eyes fixated on the shiny metal, watching her face, wondering what she was about to do.

Her transmitter crackled and came to life. "Come in Megan, this is Andy."

She sighed angrily. "What do you want?"

"This place is gonna blow in five minutes, we gotta run."

"Shit! Okay, okay. I'll be there." She put the transmitter into her pocket.

"I have to run. But I'll see you again sometime." She kicked him in the side one last time and limped off towards her group.

He lay dazed, the world blurred before his eyes. Darkness called to him, he could not resist. "Scully..." he whispered and slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Scully reached a locked door.

"Hello?" she called through it. Securely locked, impossible to open. Dead end. She turned around, wondering if she should have taken one of the forks in the hallway. Well, at least she was now certain no food storage went on in this place. There were more closed doors here than the Pentagon.

She turned around and walked back to an intersection. She followed this other hallway which looked exactly the same. Then, out of the corner of her eye she saw movement.

"Hey! Federal Agent -- Stop!" She shouted at the figure, pointing her gun. When she caught up to it...she found herself face to face with...herself.

"Oh my God," she whispered and blinked.

"Dana," Kate said, looking at her carefully.

Scully could only stare. The woman in front of her had the same vibrant blue eyes, small figure, red pageboy, tiny nose, delicate lips. Unconsciously she fingered her own brown hair.

Shakily she reached out a hand and touched her clone's arm. God she was real, flesh and perfect. There were no surgical marks, they **made**  her. Any hatred she had felt vanished as she looked into her own eyes. The moment was broken when Scully heard the crying again.

"Do you hear that?" they asked simultaneously.

"Have you found a way downstairs?" Kate asked.

"No, have you?" Scully asked as she looked further down the hallway.

Kate shook her head. "Here, you might need this." She handed her a flashlight.

Scully accepted the gift, "Who's down there?"

"I don't know...but someone's hurting them, something's being done to them. We have to get them out of there." The 'we' was a mistake, but neither noticed.

Scully nodded, "I'll go look for an entrance, you go around the other way, there has to be one."

Kate nodded and the world exploded.

Scully felt herself being thrown against a wall and out of the building. Kate disappeared after the floor dropped. If anyone had been around to witness it they would have said that it was a sight, the only way to survive it was to be in the right place at the right time.

She hit the ground with a soft thud and blanked out for a few minutes. When she awoke she saw the building was little more than a large pile of rubble. All the screaming and crying had stopped, except for her own. Tears fell as she walked around the devastation.

Stop thinking that way, it will be okay... she tried to make herself believe. She clutched her right arm which had been scraped on a crumbling wall. Only vaguely realized that she had a mild concussion, all other thoughts focused on movement.

Dusk made it hard to see, she turned on the flashlight and pointed it ahead of her, noticing bloody high heeled footprints coming from around the corner. Swallowed all hesitation and forced herself to follow the trail backwards. Her flashlight soon lighted upon a pool of blood and an unmoving body.

"Mulder," she whispered and ran towards him, the pain in her own arm momentarily forgotten.

She leaned down next to him, gently caressing his forehead, cheek, only slowly realizing that blood was staining her pants.

"Mulder?" she whispered again and felt for a pulse. There was one, weak but steady. She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"I'm here, I'm here..." she whispered in his ear and kissed his cheek softly. "Who did this to you?" she asked aloud, not expecting an answer. Part of her kept waiting for another person to walk out of rubble.

Her flashlight shone upon his leg and she gasped. Definitely a through and through wound but God how was it so large? She blinked away a few tears. How had this happened? A large bruise was evident on his wrist and she could tell from the small cut on his lower lip that he had just been through a terrible amount of pain.

When her left hand tried to examine his wound he came to life, his eyes wild and terrified. "No," he whispered weakly.

"Shh...it's me you're going to okay. I have to stop the bleeding. I'm sorry-- but this will hurt." She undid his tie and pulled it out of the collar. Steeled herself and wrapped it around his thigh, below the wound and tied it tightly, a tourniquet. Adrenaline caused her arm to feel better, even as she was using it.

Next, she stripped off her jacket and blouse, tore the blouse into pieces and pushed down hard on the wound. Thankfully, he passed out again. She tied the pieces around his thigh as a makeshift bandage. She checked him for signs of shock, his eyes were looking a bit glassy and his skin was covered by a sheen of sweat. She lay her jacket over him, trying to make him warm, and sat on her knees and moved his head onto her lap-- elevation was important. She wiped the tear tracks off his face.

"We're going to be fine." She grabbed her cellular phone, uninjured in the explosion. Thank God there was signal.

"This is FBI Special Agent Dana Scully requesting medical assistance immediately. Officer down, repeat, officer down...." she told them her location, her voice not cracking too badly and hung up.

"I'm here, I'm here..." she whispered in his ear and kissed his cheek softly.

"Who did this to you?" she asked aloud, not expecting an answer. Part of her kept waiting for her clone to walk out of the rubble. All this way and nothing to show for it. They'd won again. She kept gently touching his face and trying not to move his wrist. Whatever other injuries he had would have to be found by a doctor, she was in no shape to go looking. Part of her realized how this would look, being found half naked cradling him.

She couldn't care, his well being was much more important than any modesty. "I found her, but she's gone...they've won," she whispered after a few moments. He showed no sign of hearing her so she continued. "It was so odd, seeing myself mirrored... it's changed me somehow. I'm not sure which one of us escaped."

They sat in silence until sirens screamed across the night.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And death i think is no parenthesis. --e.e. cummings

**Epilogue**   
**Bedford**   
**11:58 PM**

It had not been a good night for Jim Walters. He'd arrived home tired and rumpled. Nadia had been waiting with a delicious dinner. She wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd reluctantly eaten with his wife. Her icy, accusing silences had made every bite of the meal-- top sirloin with roasted potatoes, a mixed green salad, ranch-style beans, sourdough bread, and his favorite beer-- taste like sawdust.

Or maybe it hadn't been the dinner company, as Jim had discovered later.

"Nadia, for the love of GOD!" Jim screamed from his chair. He tried desperately to loosen the ropes that held him, but it was no use. Nadia had tied him very tight. He never would have believed it. She'd drugged his dinner, tied him to a chair, and the look in her eyes screamed murder.

His murder.

"Yes, James, I'm doing this for the love of God, my country, my family, and myself. Don't worry. It'll be over soon," Nadia replied. She was glad Jim couldn't see what she was doing. He was screaming enough already.

The pictures in the house glared out at her accusingly. The children, the grandchildren-- they wouldn't understand. Maybe they'd think it was a delayed reaction to losing Jessica. The greater purpose would be lost on them, because they never understood it, and she didn't have time to explain it to them. No notes, except to one person, that Agent Scully. She wouldn't understand, either, but she might someday.

A few very simple words: "'The only legend I have ever loved is the story of a daughter lost in hell. And found and rescued there. Love and blackmail are the gist of it... And the best thing about the legend is I can enter it anywhere. And have.' It's not your fault."

The note was on its way to her right now, if They didn't intercept it. It didn't matter now to Nadia. Her conscience was in order, her house was in perfect order (the police would be so interested in that detail, but what woman didn't understand?), and she herself was wearing her favorite dress. Jessica had gotten it for her.

"Nadia, Jesus Christ!" Jim screamed. Nadia almost regretted she hadn't just poisoned his dinner and been done with it. But that wouldn't have been the right way to do things and things had to be done properly. She glanced at her watch. 11:59 PM. She trotted back into the living room. Jim was sitting in the center of it, in his chair screaming.

"It's just about time," she told him, making final preparations. "I hope it's not too bad, dear."

"Nadia, you're crazy! Nadia! Nadia!" he screamed at her.

"No, I think after all these years, I've finally become sane, Jim," she replied. Mechanically she checked her watch and nodded. "Midnight. Goodnight, dear, I don't think we'll be seeing each other in the morning."

She kissed him one last time. Then she set down the gasoline she'd been pouring everywhere. She took out the box of strike-anywhere matches she'd kept in her pocket all evening and opened it. Slowly, with agonizing care, she removed one match and stared at it in fascination.

"Put out the light. And then-- put out the light," she murmured, and struck it against the box.

A smile crossed her face as the little thing lit up.

* * *

...they stole the body, the evidence-- whatever part of it that would have been left after that explosion. Despite our screams that there was a person-- hell, people in there besides us-- officials announce that the devastating explosion claimed 'no lives' and it is merely an insurance matter, not life and death.

I try to tell myself it is enough that I am alive. That there are no lasting effects from the hell I went through the past few weeks, few months. Mulder is recovering quickly (I will never get over how fast he heals), and as always, the official response is to deny and ignore. Despite my hair color, despite the traces we've found that I spent time in a hospital and not running around with Mulder on cases, everyone seems to think that even if my wild allegations are true, she's gone and I should pick up where she left off. They all think there's no difference between me and-- her.

Her. The other one. The sister, daughter, twin, double of me, unfortunately kissed into an identical shape by Fate or God or Chance (or an unethical shadow government with no other desire than to have another tool in their dark and endless wars). What can I think of her? Of all of us, she was the holy innocent, a pawn in a game that created and destroyed her.

I-- I don't know what to think any more. The last thing I found of her were some entries in my journal dated about three days before Nadia Walters contacted Mulder. Simple things. She needed to call Mom. She wondered when Charlie was coming home to visit. She was having nightmares about Pennsylvania. Such simple things, but they were meant to be mine. I--

THUMP!

Scully's attention was diverted from her computer to the loud crashing around her apartment.

"Mulder, is that you?" she called.

"How the hell is a man supposed to get a glass of water around here?" he stormed. Scully suppressed a small grin. She had invited him over to stay the evening-- he'd just gotten out of the hospital, and his leg still wasn't at a hundred percent-- and boy, he was grumpy.

"I'm coming," Scully called, looking at the last line of her journal entry and sighing. She shook her head at the spectacle of Mulder, taped up and limping, leaning in the doorframe of her kitchen. "Do you want me to get it for you?"

"No, but will you?" Mulder asked, pouting at his partner and then smiling.

"All right, I'll do it. What would you do without me?" Scully asked.

"Flounder around like a beached fish. Possibly just like a rainbow trout," Mulder replied fondly. "What were you doing? I thought you were going to get us a movie to watch, seeing as you didn't want to watch 'Love Slaves from Orion Six.' Hard time deciding?"

Scully shook her head. "I'm sorry. I started writing in my journal. I was considering her."

"Oh," Mulder said. "And what were your conclusions?"

"Just a minute," Scully said, helping him over to the kitchen table and grabbing a glass of water for the both of them. She sat down and shrugged.

"I don't know, Mulder," she said. "I don't think that I really have a conclusion on her. I can't just chalk her up as 'yet another really shitty thing the bad guys have done to me,' now, can I? She was a human being, and they created her for what? Then they killed her because she was human-- she had an independent will, she didn't follow the plan. And now we're just going to let it go?"

"No."

Scully shook her head. "We've said that before. We've said it too many fucking goddamn times before. We're no better than them, letting it go letting it go--"

Mulder looked at her. "It's not your fault she died, Dana."

Her eyebrow shot up at the use of her neglected Christian name, but she didn't say anything about that. Her face stayed a mask of contemplation as she drank the rest of her water and regarded him.

"I was reading her journal entries. She quoted a poem-- Laura Jackson was the poet. It said something about the wind suffering of blowing, and I of my whoness. I can't help but feel a little guilty. Mulder, she was her own person, forced to live out my life, my guilt, my whoness. And then she died. It's not my fault that she died, but it's my fault she lived the way she lived."

Mulder reached out and took her small, soft hand. His shifting-colored eyes regarded her seriously.

"She lived the way she lived well. She was a strong woman who sacrificed her life trying to find the truth. I don't think that you can deny that, no matter if we find the bastards who did this or not. She died in the pursuit of justice. We've got to follow that legacy."

Scully nodded and they sat there for a long time, without talking, listening to the sound of silence and falling rain.

* * *

Undisclosed Location

"God! Do they always have to be so fucking messy? Clean-up was hell," Stallworthy complained to his partner. "I mean, there's kill and there's overkill, you know what I'm saying."

"I'm with you on that, Stallworthy," Norton replied. "So how many survivors did we dig out?"

"The ward was a total loss. Motherfucking operatives and their pride in obliterating stuff. Do you know how much research we lost? But we pulled one out of the ruins," Stallworthy said. "She's a mess. They've got her in the OR right now. They barely saved her life, and they're already trying to reconstruct a face, anything. Like I said, overkill."

"Who the hell is she?"

Stallworthy shrugged. "I don't know, Norton. But they were glad to see her. My guess is that she's an operative-- or maybe--"

He stopped and shook his head. "Fuck, did they ever get lucky."

Norton looked at him. "Who?" he asked impatiently. "I'm not psychic."

"If you can't figure it out, you're thicker than I thought," Stallworthy replied. "Come on, let's get a beer and head out for home. I'm tired, man."

"Fine. Come on, tell me!" Norton replied as the two men strode out of the building, past the operating room where a group of men watched the sweating plastic surgeon work frantically on the woman on the table.

"She will have to be handled," the smoking man said calmly. "She won't be a willing patient nor will she give us any information."

"I think we should just be glad we have her alive. She won't be running out and exposing us any time soon," another man replied.

"And what about Agents Scully and Mulder? If they knew about this the effects could be disastrous."

"Who's going to tell them?" the smoker asked. "Everyone who knows can be trusted."

"That's what we said about the clone," an Englishman replied. "We can always trust someone until they change their mind."

In the hall outside, Norton was still trying to coax the mystery woman's identity from Stallworthy, who was staying mum. And in the locked operating room, the surgeon opened the patient's eyes and examined them briefly.

"Pretty eyes," he told his assistant indifferently. "A most remarkable shade of blue."

Then he took a deep breath and went back to work.


End file.
